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STUDIES  m  COMPARATIVE  LITERATURE 


LITERARY  CRITICISM   IN  THE 
RENAISSANCE 


; 


Madesimo  su  lo  Spluga, 
30  agosto,  1899. 

Caro  Signore :  La  ringrazio  del  suo  veramente  pre- 
giaiissimo  dono.  Da  tempo  io  invocavo  una  storia  della 
critica  in  Italia.  II  suo  lihro  viene  a  compiere  a  supe- 
rare  ogni  mia  speranza;  cost  prof ondamente  sono  scrutati 
i  concetti,  cosi  Jinamente  svolte  le  teoriche  e  studiato  lo 
spirito  a  traverso  il  Cinquecento,  cost  bene  analizzati  gli 
elementi ;  in  opere  che  nessuno  in  Italia  si  da  la  pena  di 
leggere,  tanto  sono  difficili,  confuse,  e  (^diciamolo  pure) 
inamabili.  Credo  che  egual  lode  meriti  la  trattazione 
francese  e  inglese.  Certo  in  Italia  non  abbiamo  libra  in 
proposito  che  si  approssimi  pur  con  lungo  intervallo  al 
libra  suo.  Di  che  Lo  ringrazio  anche  per  la  letteratura 
italiana.     La  saluto  cordialmente  e  me  Le  affermo 

obbligatissimo 

Giosue  Carducci. 


COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY  PEESS 

London  :  Toronto : 

HENRY   FROWDE  HENRY   FROWDE 

Amen  Coknkr,  E.G.  25  Richmond  St.,  W. 

Nkw  York: 

LEMCKE   &   BUECIINER 

30-32  Wkst  '27th  St. 


A  HISTORY 

OF 

LITERARY  CRITICISM 

IN   THE   RENAISSANCE 

BY 

J.   E.   SPINGARN 

SOMETIME    PROFESSOR    OF    COMPARATIVE    LITERATCEE 
IN    COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY 


Net)  gorft 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1912 

All  rights  reetrved 


Copyright,  1899, 
B,  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANT. 

So^      Second  edition,  revised, 

KOMAS    f  "WICCABE 


j.8.CuBblnKCo.-UerwlcW&8u.ltbC«. 
Norwood,  MttSB.,  U.B.A. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 

Some  few  years  ago,  when  an  Italian  translation 
of  this  work  was  being  prepared  for  the  press,  I 
made  a  thorough  revision  of  the  text  and  incor- 
porated a  large  mass  of  additional  material.  I 
have  neither  the  leisure  nor  the  inclination  to  under- 
take so  complete  a  revision  at  the  present  time, 
and  much  of  the  material  added  in  the  Italian 
version  would  scarcely  be  likely  to  interest  the 
English  reader.  In  this  second  edition  I  have 
corrected  all  specific  inaccuracies  and  misstatements 
which  have  come  to  my  notice,  and  I  have  added  a 
new  Conclusion  of  twenty  pages  which  in  part 
reproduces  an  article  on  "  The  Origins  of  Modern 
Criticism  "  in  Modern  Philology  for  April,  1904. 

When  this  book  first  appeared,  the  poet  Carducci 
noted  with  patriotic  regret  that  no  one  in  Italy  had 
taken  the  trouble  to  read  the  important  body  of 
criticism  with  which  this  work  is  concerned.  Since 
then  the  critics  and  theorists  of  the  Cinquecento 
have  been  the  object  of  considerable  study,  in  Eng- 
land as  well  as  in  Italy;  and  their  significance  as 
the  real  founders  of  modern  criticism  is  no  longer 
open  to  question. 

J.  E.  S. 

Columbia  University, 
January, 1908. 

iii 

'^166293 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION 

This  essay  undertakes  to  treat  the  history  of 
literary  criticism  in  the  Renaissance.  The  three 
sections  into  which  the  essay  is  divided  are  de- 
voted, respectively,  to  Italian  criticism  from  Dante 
to  Tasso,  to  French  criticism  from  Du  Bellay  to 
Boileau,  and  to  English  criticism  from  Ascham  to 
Milton;  but  the  critical  activity  of  the  sixteenth 
century  has  been  the  main  theme,  and  the  earlier 
or  later  literature  has  received  treatment  only  in 
so  far  as  it  serves  to  explain  the  causes  or  conse- 
quences of  the  critical  development  of  this  central 
period.  It  was  at  this  epoch  that  ijia^ern  criticism 
began,  and  that  the  ancient  ideals  of  art  seemed 
once  more  to  sway  the  minds  of  men;  so  that 
the  history  of  sixteenth-century  criticism  must  of 
necessity  include  a  study  of  the  beginnings  of 
critical  activity  in  modern  Europe  and  of  the  grad- 
ual introduction  of  the  Aristotelian  canons  into 
modern  literature. 

This  study  has  been  made  subservient,  more  par- 
ticularly, to  two  specific  purposes.  While  the 
critical  activity  of  the  period  is  important  and 
even  interesting  in  itself,  it  has  been  here  studied 
primarily  for  the  purpose  of  tracing  the  origin  and 


VI 


PREFACE 


causes  of  the  classic  spirit  in  modern  letters  and  of 
discovering  the  sources  of  the  rules  and  theories 
embodied  in  the  neo-classic  literature  of  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries.  How  did  the 
classic  spirit  arise  ?  Whence  did  it  come,  and  how- 
did  it  develop  ?  What  was  the  origin  of  the  prin- 
ciples and  precepts  of  neo-classicism  ?  These  are 
some  of  the  questions  I  have  attempted  to  answer 
in  this  essay ;  and,  in  answering  them,  I  have  tried 
to  remember  that  this  is  a  history,  not  of  critical 
literature,  but  of  literary  criticism.  For  this  reason 
I  have  given  to  individual  books  and  authors  less 
prominence  than  some  of  them  perhaps  deserved, 
and  have  confined  myself  almost  exclusively  to  the 
origin  of  principles,  theories,  and  rules,  and  to  the 
general  temper  of  classicism.  For  a  similar  reason 
I  have  been  obliged  to  say  little  or  nothing  of 
the  methods  and  results  of  applied,  or  concrete, 
criticism. 

This,  then,  has  been  the  main  design  of  the  essay ; 
but  furthermore,  as  is  indicated  in  the  title,  I  have 
attempted  to  point  out  the  part  played  by  Italy  in 
the  growth  of  this  neo-classic  spirit  and  in  the  for- 
mulation of  these  neo-classic  principles.  The  influ- 
ence of  the  Italian  Eenaissance  in  the  development 
of  modern  science,  philosophy,  art,  and  creative 
literature  has  been  for  a  long  time  the  subject  of 
much  study.  It  has  been  my  more  modest  task  to 
trace  the  indebtedness  of  the  modern  world  to  Italy 
in  the  domain  of  literary  criticism ;  and  I  trust  that 
I  have  shown  the  Renaissance  influence  to  be  as 
great  in  this  as  in  the  other  realms  of  study.     The 


PREFACE 


VU 


birth  of  modern  criticism  was  due  to  the  critical 
activity  of  Italian  humanism ;  and  it  is  in  sixteenth- 
century  Italy  that  we  shall  find,  more  or  less 
matured,  the  general  spirit  and  even  the  specific 
principles  of  French  classicism.  The  second  half 
of  the  design,  then,  is  the  history  of  the  Italian 
influence  in  literary  criticism ;  and  with  Milton,  the 
last  of  the  humanists  in  England,  the  essay  natu- 
rally closes.  But  we  shall  find,  I  think,  that  the 
influence  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  in  the  domain 
of  literary  criticism  was  not  even  then  all  de- 
cayed, and  that  Lessing  and  Shelley,  to  mention  no 
others,  were  the  legitimate  inheritors  of  the  Italian 
tradition. 

The  bibliography  at  the  end  of  the  essay  in- 
dicates sufficiently  my  obligations  to  preceding 
writers.  It  has  been  prepared  chiefly  for  the 
purpose  of  facilitating  reference  to  works  cited  in 
the  text  and  in  the  foot-notes,  and  should  be  con- 
sulted for  the  full  titles  of  books  therein  men- 
tioned; it  makes  no  pretence  of  being  a  complete 
bibliography  of  the  subject.  It  will  be  seen  that 
the  history  of  Italian  criticism  in  the  sixteenth 
century  has  received  scarcely  any  attention  from 
modern  scholars.  The  most  complete  lists  of  the 
critical  works  of  the  Renaissance  are  to  be  found 
in  Crescimbeni's  Istoria  della  Volgar  Poesia  (Rome, 
1698)  and  in  Blankenburg's  Litterarische  Zusatze 
zu  Sulzer's  Allgemeiner  TJieorie  der  schonen  Kiinste 
(Leipzig,  1796-98).  In  regard  to  Aristotle's  Poetics, 
I  have  used  the  text,  and  in  general  followed  the 
interpretation,  given  in  Professor  S.  H.  Butcher's 


vill  PREFACE 

Aristotle's  Theory  of  Poetry  and  Fine  Art,  a  noble 
monument  of  scholarship  vivified  by  literary  feel- 
ing. I  desire  also  to  express  my  obligations  to 
Professor  Butcher  for  an  abstract  of  Zabarella,  to 
Mr.  P.  0.  Skinner  of  Harvard  for  an  analysis 
of  Capriano,  to  my  friend,  Mr.  F.  W.  Chandler, 
for  summaries  of  several  early  English  rhetorical 
treatises,  and  to  Professor  Cavalier  Speranza  for  a 
few  corrections ;  also  to  my  friends,  Mr.  J.  G.  Un- 
derhill,  Mr.  Lewis  Einstein,  and  Mr.  H.  A.  Uter- 
hart,  and  to  my  brother,  Mr.  A.  B.  Spingarn,  for 
incidental  assistance  of  some  importance. 

But,  above  all,  I  desire  to  acknowledge  my  indebt- 
edness to  Professor  George  E.  Woodberry.  This 
book  is  the  fruit  of  his  instruction ;  and  in  writing 
it,  also,  I  have  had  recourse  to  him  for  assistance 
and  criticism.  Without  the  aid  so  kindly  accorded 
by  him,  the  book  could  hardly  have  been  written, 
and  certainly  would  never  have  assumed  its  pres- 
ent form.  But  my  obligations  to  him  are  not  lim- 
ited to  the  subject  or  contents  of  the  present  essay. 
Through  a  period  of  five  years  the  inspiration 
derived  from  his  instruction  and  encouragement 
has  been  so  great  as  to  preclude  the  possibility  of 
its  expression  in  a  preface.  '  Quare  habe  tibi  quid- 
quid  hoc  libelli. 

New  York, 
March,  1899. 


CONTENTS 

PAET  FIRST 
LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY 

PAOB 

I.     The  Fundamental  Pkoblem  of  Renaissance 

Criticism       .        .        .        .         .        .        .        3 

i.    Mediaeval  Conceptions  of  Poetry, 
ii.   The  Moral  Justification  of  Poetry. 
iii.    The  Final  Justification  of  Poetry. 

II.     The    General    Theory    of    Poetry    in    the 

Italian  Renaissance   .....       24 
1.    Poetry  as  a  Form  of  Scholastic  Philosophy, 
ii.   Poetry  as  an  Imitation  of  Life, 
iii.   The  Function  of  Poetry. 

III.  •  The  Theory  of  the  Drama      ....      60 

i.   The  Subject  of  Tragedy, 
ii.   The  Function  of  Tragedy, 
iii.,  The  Characters  of  Tragedy. 
iv.    The  Dramatic  Unities. 
V.   Comedy. 

IV.  The  Theory  of  Epic  Poetry   ....     107 

i.  The  Theory  of  the  Epic  Poem, 
ii.   Epic  and  Romance. 

V.    The  Growth  of  the  Classic  Spirit  in  Italian 

Criticism 126 

i.   Humanism, 
ii.    Aristotelianism. 
iii.   Rationalism. 

is 


X  CONTENTS 

PAOK 

VI.     Romantic  Elements  in  Italian  Criticism       .     165 

i.   The  Ancient  Romantic  Element, 
ii.    Mediaeval  Elements, 
iii.    Modern  Elements. 


PART   SECOND 

LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  FRANCE 

I.    The  Character  and  Development  of  French 

Criticism  in  the  Sixteenth  Century       ,     171 
i.    Character. 
ii.   Development. 

II.     The    Theory    of    Poetry    in    the    French 

Renaissance 190 

i.   The  Poetic  Art. 
ii.   The  Drama, 
iii.    Heroic  Poetry. 

III.  Classic  and   Romantic   Elements  in  French 

Criticism  during  the  Sixteenth  Century    214 
i.    Classical  Elements. 
ii.    Romantic  Elements. 

IV.  The  Formation  of  the  Classic  Ideal  in  the 

Seventeenth  Century  ....     232 

i.    The  Romantic  Revolt. 
ii.    The  Reaction  against  the  P16ia,de. 
iii.   The  Second  Influx  of  Italian  Ideas. 
iv.  The  Influence  of  Rationalistic  Philosophy. 


CONTENTS  xi 

PART  THIRD 

LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ENGLAND 

PAai 
I.     The    Evolution   of  English    Criticism    from 

AscHAM  to  Milton 253 

II.     The    General    Theory    of    Poetry    in    the 

Elizabethan  Age 261 

III.     The  Theory  of  Dramatic  and  Heroic  Poetry    282 
i.   Tragedy, 
ii.    Comedy. 

iii.   The  Dramatic  Unities, 
iv.    Epic  Poetry. 

rV.     Classical  Elements  in  Elizabethan  Criticism    296 
i.   Introductory  :  Komantic  Elements, 
ii.   Classical  Metres. 
iii.   Other  Evidences  of  Classicism. 

Conclusion .311 

Appendices 332 

A.  Chronological    Table    of    the    Chief    Critical 

Works  of  the  Sixteenth  Centurj\ 

B.  Salviati's   Account  of  the  Commentators  on 

Aristotle's  Poetics. 

Bibliography 337 

Index    .•.•••....    345* 


Part  First 

LITERARY  ORITIOISM  IN  ITALl 


LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   FUNDAMENTAL    PROBLEM    OF   RENAISSANCE 
CRITICISM 

The  first  problem  of  Renaissance  criticism  was 
the  justification  of  imaginative  literature.  The  ex-/ 
istence  and  continuity  of  the  aesthetic  consciousness, 
and  perhaps,  in  a  less  degree,  of  the  critical  faculty," 
throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  can  hardly  be  denied ; 
yet  distrust  of  literature  was  keenest  among  the  very 
class  of  men  in  whom  the  critical  faculty  might  be 
presupposed,  and  it  was  as  the  handmaid  of  philoso- 
phy, and  most  of  all  as  the  vassal  of  theology,  that 
poetry  was  chiefly  valued.  In  other  words,  the 
criteria  by  which  imaginative  literature  was  judged 
during  the  Middle  Ages  were  not  literary  criteria. 
Poetry  was  disregarded  or  contemned,  or  was  valued 
if  at  all  for  virtues  that  least  belong  to  it.  The 
Renaissance  was  thus  confronted  with  the  necessity 
of  justifying  its  appreciation  of  the  vast  body  of 
literature  which  the  Revival  of  Learning  had  recov- 
ered for  the  modern  world;  and  the  function  of 
Renaissance  criticism  was  to  reestablish  the  sesthetie 
foundations  of  literature,  to  reaffirm  the  eternal 

3 


4  L.}TEfiLHY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY  [chap. 

lesson  of  Hellenic  culture,  and  to  restore  once  and 
for  all  the  element  of  beauty  to  its  rightful  place  in 
human  life  and  in  the  world  of  art. 


I.   Mediaeval  Conceptions  of  Poetry 

The  mediaeval  distrust  of  literature  was  the  result 
of  several  cooperating  causes.  Popular  literature 
had  fallen  into  decay,  and  in  its  contemporary  form 
was  beneath  serious  consideration.  Classical  liter- 
ature was  unfortunately  pagan,  and  was  moreover 
but  imperfectly  known.  The  mediaeval  Church 
from  its  earliest  stages  had  regarded  pagan  culture 
with  suspicion,  and  had  come  to  look  upon  the  de- 
velopment of  popular  literature  as  antagonistic  to 
its  own  supremacy.  But  beyond  this,  the  distrust 
of  literature  went  deeper,  and  was  grounded  upon 
certain  theoretical  and  fundamental  objections  to  all 
the  works  of  the  imagination. 

These  theoretical  objections  were  in  nowise  new 
to  the  Middle  Ages.  They  had  been  stated  in  antiq- 
uity with  much  more  directness  and  philosophical 
efficacy  than  was  possible  in  the  mediaeval  period. 
Plato  had  tried  imaginative  literature  by  the  cri- 
teria of  reality  and  morality,  both  of  which  are 
unsesthetic  criteria,  although  fundamentally  appli- 
cable to  poetry.  In  respect  to  reality,  he  had  shown 
that  poetry  is  three  removes  from  the  truth,  being 
but  the  imitation,  by  the  artist,  of  the  imitation,  in 
life,  of  an  idea  in  the  mind  of  God.  In  respect  to 
morality,  he  had  discovered  in  Homer,  the  greatest 


I.]  THE  FUNDAMENTAL  PROBLEM  5 

of  poets,  deviations  from  truth,  blasphemy  against 
the  gods,  and  obscenity  of  various  sorts.  Further- 
more, he  had  found  that  creative  literature  excites 
the  emotions  more  than  does  actual  life,  and  stirs 
up  ignoble  passions  which  were  better  restrained. 
These  ideas  ran  throughout  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  indeed  persisted  even  beyond  the  Renaissance. 
Poetry  was  judged  by  these  same  criteria,  but  it 
was  natural  that  mediaeval  writers  should  substitute 
more  practical  reasons  for  the  metaphysical  argu- 
ments of  Plato.  According  to  the  criterion  of 
reality,  it  was  urged  that  poetry  in  its  very  essence 
is  untrue,  that  at  bottom  it  is  fiction,  and  therefore 
false.  Thus  Tertullian  said  that  "the  Author  of 
truth  hates  all  the  false ;  He  regards  as  adultery  all 
that  is  unreal.  .  .  .  He  never  will  approve  pre- 
tended loves,  and  wraths,  and  groans,  and  tears ; "  * 
and  he  affirmed  that  in  place  of  these  pagan  works 
there  was  in  the  Bible  and  the  Fathers,  a  vast 
body  of  Christian  literature  and  that  this  is  "  not 
fabulous,  but  true,  not  tricks  of  art,  but  plain  reali- 
ties." ^  According  to  the  criterion  of  morality,  it 
was  urged  that  as  few  works  of  the  imagination 
were  entirely  free  from  obscenity  and  blasphemy, 
such  blemishes  are  inseparable  from  the  poetic 
art;  and  accordingly,  Isidore  of  Seville  says  that 
a  Christian  is  forbidden  to  read  the  figments  of  the 
poets,  "quia  per  oblectamenta  inanium  fabularum 
mentem  excitant  ad  incentiva  libidinum."  ^ 

The  third,  or  psychological  objection,  made  by 
Plato,  was  similarly  emphasized.     Thus  Tertullian 
1  De  Spectac.  xxiii.        2  Zbid.  xxii.       3  Differehtise,  iii  13, 1. 


6  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       lchap. 

pointed  out  that  while  God  has  enjoined  us  to  deal 
calmly  and  gently  and  quietly  with  the  Holy  Spirit, 
literature,  and  especially  dramatic  literature,  leads 
to  spiritual  agitation.^  This  point  seemed  to  the 
mediaeval  mind  fundamental,  for  in  real  beauty, 
as  Thomas  Aquinas  insisted,  desire  is  quieted.' 
furthermore,  it  was  shown  that  the  only  body  of 
literary  work  worthy  of  serious  study  dealt  with 
pagan  divinities  and  with  religious  practices  which 
were  in  direct  antagonism  to  Christianity.  Other 
objections,  also,  were  incidentally  alluded  to  by 
mediaeval  writers.  For  example,  it  was  said,  the 
supreme  question  in  all  matters  of  life  is  the  ques- 
tion of  conduct,  and  it  was  not  apparent  in  what 
manner  poetry  conduces  to  action.  Poetry  has  no 
practical  use ;  it  rather  enervates  men  than  urges 
them  to  the  call  of  duty  ;  and  above  all,  there  are 
more  profitable  occupations  in  which  the  righteous 
man  may  be  engaged. 

These  objections  to  literatui'e  are  not  character- 
istically mediaeval.  They  have  sprung  up  in  every 
period  of  the  world's  history,  and  especially  recur 
in  all  ages  in  which  ascetic  or  theological  conceptions 
of  life  are  dominant.  They  were  stock  questions 
of  the  Greek  schools,  and  there  are  extant  treatises 
by  Maximus  of  Tyre  and  others  on  the  problem 
whether  or  not  Plato  was  justified  in  expelling 
Homer  from  his  ideal  commonwealth.  The  same 
objections  prevailed  beyond  the  Renaissance;  and 
they  were  urged  in  Italy  by  Savonarola,  in  Ger- 

1  Be  Spectac.  xv.    Qf.  Cyprian,  Epist.  ad  Donat.  viii. 

2  Cf.  Bosanquet,  Hist,  of  bathetic,  p.  148. 


I.]  THE   FUNDAMENTAL  PROBLEM  7 

many  by  Cornelius  Agrippa,  in  England  by  Gosson 
and  Prynne,  and  in.  France  by  Bossuet  and  other 
ecclesiastics. 

II.    The  Moral  Justification  of  Poetry 

The  allegorical  method  of  interpreting  literature 
was  the  result  of  the  mediaeval  attempt  to  answer 
the  objections  just  stated.  This  method  owed  its 
origin  to  the  mode  of  interpreting  the  popular 
mythology  first  employed  by  the  Sophists  and 
more  thoroughly  by  the  later  Stoics.  Such  heroes 
as  Hercules  and  Theseus,  instead  of  being  mere 
brute  conquerors  of  monsters  and  giants,  were  re- 
garded by  the  Stoic  philosophers  as  symbols  of  the 
early  sages  who  had  combated  the  vices  and  pas- 
sions of  mankind,  and  they  became  in  the  course  of 
time  types  of  pagan  saints.  The  same  mode  of  in- 
terpretation was  later  applied  to  the  stories  of  the 
Old  Testament  by  Philo  Judaeus,  and  was  first 
introduced  into  Occidental  Europe  by  Hilary  of 
Poitiers  and  Ambrose,  Bishop  of  Milan.^  Abra- 
ham, Adam,  Eve,  Jacob,  became  types  of  various 
virtues,  and  the  biblical  stories  were  considered  as 
symbolical  of  the  various  moral  struggles  in  the 
soul  of  man.  The  first  instance  of  the  systematic 
application  of  the  method  to  the  pagan  myths 
occurs  in  the  Mythologicon  of  Eulgentius,  who  prob- 
ably flourished  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixth  century ; 
and  in   his   Virgiliana  Continentia,  the  u^neid  is 

1  Cf.  St.  Augustine,  Confess,  v.  14,  vi.  4;  Clemens  Alex. 
Stromata,  v.  8. 


8  LITERARY   CRITICISM    IN   ITALY       [chap. 

treated  as  an  image  of  life,  and  the  travels  of 
^neas  as  the  symbol  of  the  progress  of  the 
human  soul,  from  nature,  through  wisdom,  to  final 
happiness. 

From  this  period,  the  allegorical  method  be- 
came the  recognized  mode  of  interpreting  litera- 
ture, whether  sacred  or  profane.  Petrarch,  in  his 
letter,  De  quihusdam  fictionihus  Virgilij^  treats  the 
uSneid  after  the  manner  of  Fulgentius;  and  even 
at  the  very  end  of  the  Eenaissance  Tasso  inter- 
preted his  own  romantic  epics  in  the  same  way. 
After  the  acceptance  of  the  method,  its  applica- 
tion was  further  complicated.  Gregory  the  Great 
ascribes  three  meanings  to  the  Bible,  —  the  literal, 
the  typical  or  allegorical,  and  the  moral.  Still 
later,  a  fourth  meaning  was  added;  and  Dante 
distinctly  claims  all  four,  the  literal,  the  allegori- 
cal, the  moral  or  philosophical,  and  the  anagqgical 
or  mystical,  for  his  Divine  Comedy} 

This  method,  while  perhaps  justifying  poetry 
from  the  standpoint  of  ethics  and  divinity,  gives  it 
no  place  as  an  independent  art ;  thus  considered, 
poetry  becomes  merely  a  popularized  form  of  theol- 
ogy. Both  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio  regarded  alle- 
gory as  the  warp  and  woof  of  poetry;  but  they 
modified  the  mediaeval  point  of  view  by  arguing 
conversely  that  theology  itself  is  a  form  of  poetry, 
—  the  poetry  of  God.  Both  of  them  insist  that  the 
Bible  is  essentially  poetical,  and  that  Christ  him- 
self spoke  largely  in  poetical  images.     This  point 

1  Opera,  p.  807. 

2  Of.  Dante,  Epist.  xi.  7 ;  Convito,  ii.  1, 1. 


I.]  THE   FUNDAMENTAL  PROBLEM  9 

was  so  emphasized  by  Renaissance  critics  that 
Berni,  in  his  Dialogo  contra  i  Poeti  (1537),  con- 
demns the  poets  for  speaking  of  God  as  Jupiter 
and  of  the  saints  as  Mercury,  Hercules,  Bacchus, 
and  for  even  having  the  audacity  to  call  the 
prophets  and  the  writers  of  the  Scriptures  poets 
and  makers  of  verses.^ 

The  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  books  of  Boccaccio's 
treatise,  De  Genealogia  Deorum,  have  been  called 
"  the  first  defence  of  poesy  in  honor  of  his  own  art 
by  a  poet  of  the  modern  world ;  "  but  Boccaccio's 
justification  of  imaginative  literature  is  still  prima- 
rily based  on  the  usual  mediaeval  grounds.  The 
reality  of  poetry  is  dependent  on  its  allegorical 
foundations ;  its  moral  teachings  are  to  be  sought 
in  the  hidden  meanings  discoverable  beneath  the 
literal  expression;  pagan  poetry  is  defended  for 
Christianity  on  the  ground  that  the  references  to 
Greek  and  Eoman  gods  and  rituals  are  to  be  re- 
garded only  as  symbolical  truths.  The  poet's  func- 
tion, for  Boccaccio,  as  for  Dante  and  Petrarch,  was 
to  hide  and  obscure  the  actual  truth  behind  a  veil 
of  beautiful  fictions  —  veritatem  rerum  pulchris  vela- 
minibus  adornare.^ 

The  humanistic  point  of  view,  in  regard  to  poe- 
try, was  of  a  more  practical  and  far-reaching  nature 
than  that  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  allegorical 
interpretation  did  indeed  continue  throughout  the 
Renaissance,  and  Mantuan,  for  example,  can  only 

1  Berni,  p.  226  sq. 

2  Petrarch,  Opera,  p.  1205 ;  qf.  Boccaccio,  Gen.  degli  Dei, 
p.  250,  V. 


10  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

define  a  poem  as  a  literary  form  which  is  bound  by 
the  stricter  laws  of  metre,  and  which  has  its  fundar 
mental  truths  hidden  under  the  literal  expressions 
of  the  fable.  For  still  later  writers,  this  mode  of 
regarding  literature  seemed  to  present  the  only 
loophole  of  escape  from  the  moral  objections  to 
poetry,,  But  in  employing  the  old  method,  the 
humanists  carried  it  far  beyond  its  original  appli- 
cation. Thus,  Lionardo  Bruni,  in  his  De  Studiis  et 
Literis  (c.  1405),  after  dwelling  on  the  allegorical 
interpretation  of  the  pagan  myths,  argues  that 
when  one  reads  the  story  of  ^Eneas  and  Dido,  he 
pays  his  tribute  of  admiration  to  the  genius  of  the 
poet,  but  the  matter  itself  is  known  to  be  fiction, 
and  so  leaves  no  moral  impression.^  By  this  Bruni 
means  that  fiction  as  such,  when  known  to  be  fic- 
tion, can  leave  no  moral  impression,  and  secondly, 
that  poetry  is  to  be  judged  by  the  success  of  the 
artist,  and  not  by  the  efiicacy  of  the  moralist. 
Similarly,  Battista  Guarino,  in  his  De  Ordine  Do- 
cendi  et  Studendi  (1459),  says  that  we  are  not  dis- 
turbed by  the  impieties,  cruelties,  horrors,  which  we 
find  in  poetry;  we  judge  these  things  simply  by 
their  congruity  with  the  characters  and  incidents 
described.  In  other  words,  "  we  criticise  the  artist, 
not  the  moralist."  ^  This  is  a  distinct  attempt  at 
the  aesthetic  appreciation  of  literature,  but  while 
such  ideas  are  not  uncommon  about  this  time,  they 
express  isolated  sentiments,  rather  than  a  doctrine 
strictly  coordinated  with  an  aesthetic  theory  of 
poetry. 

1  Woodward,  Vittorino  da  Feltre,  p.  132.        2  /^j^;.  p.  175. 


I.]  THE   FUNDAMENTAL   PROBLEM  11 

The  more  strict  defence  of  poetry  was  attempted 
for  the  most  part  on  the  grounds  set  forth  by 
Horace  in  his  Ars  Poetica.  At  no  period  from  the 
Augustan  Age  to  the  Renaissance  does  the  Ars 
Poetica  seem  to  have  been  entirely  lost.  It  is 
mentioned  or  quoted,  for  example,  by  Isidore  of 
Seville^  in  the  sixth  century,  by  John  of  Salis- 
bury ^  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  by  Dante  ^  in  the 
fourteenth.  Horace  insists  on  the  mingled  instruc- 
tiveness  and  pleasurableness  of  poetry ;  and  beyond 
this,  he  points  out  the  value  of  poetry  as  a  civiliz- 
ing factor  in  history,  regarding  the  early  poets  as 
sages  and  prophets,  and  the  inventors  of  arts  and 
sciences :  — 

"  Orpheus,  inspired  by  more  than  human  power, 

Did  not,  as  poets  feigned,  tame  savage  beasts, 
But  men  as  lawless  and  as  wild  as  they, 
And  first  dissuaded  them  from  rage  and  blood. 
Thus  when  Amphion  built  the  Theban  wall, 
They  feigned  the  stones  obeyed  his  magic  lute ; 
Poets,  the  first  instructors  of  mankind. 
Brought  all  things  to  their  proper  native  use  ; 
Some  they  appropriated  to  the  gods, 
And  some  to  public,  some  to  private  ends  : 
Promiscuous  love  by  marriage  was  restrained, 
Cities  were  built,  and  useful  laws  were  made.; 
So  ancient  is  the  pedigree  of  verse, 
And  so  divine  the  poet's  function."  * 

This  conception  of  the  early  poet's  function  was 
an  old  one.     It  is  to  be  found  in  Aristophanes ;  *  it 

1  Etymologiz,  viii.  7,  5.  2  PoHcraticus,  1.  8. 

3  Moore,  Dante  and  his  Early  Biographers,  London,  1890, 
pp.  173, 174. 

4  Ars  Poet.  391  (Roscommon).  5  Frogs,  1030  sq. 


12  LITERAEY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY       [chap. 

runs  through  Renaissance  criticism;  and  even  in 
this  very  century,  Shelley  ^  speaks  of  poets  as  "  the 
authors  of  language,  and  of  music,  of  the  dance,  and 
architecture,  and  statuary,  and  painting,"  as  "the 
institutors  of  laws,  and  the  founders  of  civil  society, 
and  the  inventors  of  the  arts  of  life."  To-day  the 
idealist  takes  refuge  in  the  same  faith :  "  The  tree 
of  knowledge  is  of  equal  date  with  the  tree  of  life ; 
nor  were  even  the  tamer  of  horses,  the  worker  in 
metals,  or  the  sower,  elder  than  those  twin  guardians 
of  the  soul,  —  the  poet  and  the  priest.  Conscience 
and  imagination  were  the  pioneers  who  made  earth 
habitable  for  the  human  spirit."  ^ 

It  was  this  ethical  and  civilizing  function  of 
poetry  which  was  first  in  the  minds  of  the  human- 
ists. Action  being  the  test  of  all  studies,^  poetry 
must  stand  or  fall  in  proportion  as  it  conduces  to 
righteous  action.  Thus,  Lionardo  Bruni'*  speaks  of 
poetry  as  "  so  valuable  an  aid  to  knowledge,  and  so 
ennobling  a  source  of  pleasure";  and  ^neas  Syl- 
vius Piccolomini,  in  his  treatise  De  Liberorum 
Educatione  (1450),  declares  that  the  crucial  ques- 
tion is  not.  Is  poetry  to  be  contemned?  but.  How 
are  the  poets  to  be  used?  and  he  solves  his  own 
question  by  asserting  that  we  are  to  welcome  all 
that  poets  can  render  in  praise  of  integrity  and  in 
condemnation  of  vice,  and  that  all  else  is  to  be  left 
unheeded."     Beyond  this,  the  humanists  urged  in 

1  Defence  of  Poetry,  ^d.  Cook,  p.  5. 

2  Woodberry,  "  A  New  Defence  of  Poetry,"  in  Heart  of  Man, 
New  York,  1899,  p.  Hi. 

8  Woodward,  p.  182  sq.        *  Ibid.  p.  131.        6  Ibid.  p.  150. 


I.]  THE   FUNDAMENTAL   PEOBLEM  13 

favor  of  poetry  the  fact  of  its  antiquity  and  divine 
origin,  and  the  further  fact  that  it  had  been  praised 
by  great  men  of  all  professions,  and  its  creators 
patronized  by  kings  and  emperors  from  time  im- 
memorial. 

There  were  then  at  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  the  beginning  of  the  Renaissance,  two  opposing 
tendencies  in  regard  to  the  poetic  art,  one  repre- 
senting the  humanistic  reverence  for  ancient  cul- 
ture, and  for  poetry  as  one  of  the  phases  of  that 
culture,  and  the  other  representing  not  only  the 
mediaeval  tradition,  but  a  purism  allied  to  that  of 
early  Christianity,  and  akin  to  the  ascetic  concep- 
tions of  life  found  in  almost  every  period.  These 
two  tendencies  are  expressed  specifically  in  their 
noblest  forms  by  the  great  humanist  Poliziano,  and 
the  great  moral  reformer  Savonarola.  In  the  Sylvce, 
written  toward  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
Poliziano  dwells  on  the  divine  origin  of  poetry, 
as  Boccaccio  had  done  in  his  Vita  di  Dante  ;  and 
then,  after  the  manner  of  Horace,  he  describes  its 
ennobling  influence  on  man,  and  its  general  influ- 
ence on  the  progress  of  civilization.^  He  then  pro- 
ceeds to  survey  the  progress  of  poetry  from  the 
most  ancient  times,  and  in  so  doing  may  be  said  to 
have  written  the  first  modern  history  of  literature. 
The  second  section  of  the  Sylvce  discusses  the 
bucolic  poets ;  the  third  contains  that  glorification 
of  Virgil  which  began  during  the  Middle  Ages, 
and,   continued   by  Vida    and    others,   became   in 

1  Pope,  Selecta  Poemata,  ii.  108;  cf.  Ars  Poet.  398. 


14  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

Scaliger  literary  deification;  and  the  last  section 
is  devoted  to  Homer,  who  is  considered  as  the  great 
teacher  of  wisdom,  and  the  wisest  of  the  ancients. 
Nowhere  does  Poliziano  exhibit  any  appreciation 
of  the  aesthetic  value  of  poetry,  but  his  enthusiasm 
for  the  great  poets,  and  indeed  for  all  forms  of 
ancient  culture,  is  unmistakable,  and  combined 
with  his  immense  erudition  marks  him  as  a  repre- 
sentative poet  of  humanism.^ 

On  the  other  hand,  the  puristic  conception  of  art 
is  elaborated  at  great  length  by  Savonarola  in  an 
apology  for  poetry  contained  in  his  tractate,  De 
Divisione  ac  Utilitate  Omnium  Scientarum,^  written 
about  1492.  After  classifying  the  sciences  in  true 
scholastic  fashion,  and  arranging  them  according 
to  their  relative  importance  and  their  respective 
utility  for  Christianity,  he  attacks  all  learning  as 
superfluous  and  dangerous,  unless  restricted  to  a 
chosen  few.  Poetry,  according  to  the  scholastic 
arrangement,  is  grouped  with  logic  and  grammar; 
and  this  mediaeval  classification  fixes  Savonarola's 
conception  of  the  theory  of  poetic  art.  He  expressly 
says  that  he  attacks  the  abuse  of  poetry  and  not 
poetry  itself,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  at 
bottom,  he  was  intolerant  of  creative  literature. 
Like  Plato,  like  moral  reformers  of  all  ages,  he 
feared  the  free  play  of  the  imaginative  faculty ; 
and  in  connecting  poetry  with  logic  he  was  tending 
toward  the  elimination  of  the  imagination  in  art. 
The  basis   of  his  aesthetic  system,  such  as  it  is, 

1  Cf.  Gaspary,  ii.  220. 

2  Villari,  p.  501  sq.,  aud  Perrens,  ii.  328  sq. 


I.]  THE   FUNDAMENTAL   PROBLEM  15 

rests  wholly  on  that  of  Thomas  Aquinas  ;  ^  but  he 
is  in  closer  accord  with  Aristotle  when  he  points  out 
that  versification,  a  merely  conventional  accompa- 
niment of  poetry,  is  not  to  be  confounded  with 
the  essence  of  j)oetry  itself.  This  distinction  is 
urged  to  defend  the  Scriptures,  which  he  regards 
as  the  highest  and  holiest  form  of  poetry.  For 
him  poetry  is  coordinate  with  philosophy  and  with 
thought;  but  in  his  intolerance  of  poetry  in  its 
lower  forms,  he  would  follow  Plato  in  banishing 
poets  from  an  ideal  state.  The  imitation  of  the 
ancient  poets  especially  falls  under  his  suspicion, 
and  in  an  age  given  up  to  their  worship  he  denies 
both  their  supremacy  and  their  utility.  In  fine, 
as  a  reformer,  he  represents  for  us  the  religious 
reaction  against  the  paganization  of  culture  by  the 
humanists.  But  the  forces  against  him  were  too 
strong.  Even  the  Christianization  of  culture  ef- 
fected during  the  next  century  by  the  Council  of 
Trent  was  hardly  more  than  temporary.  Human- 
ism, which  represents  the  revival  of  ancient  pa- 
gan culture,  and  rationalism,  which  represents  the 
growth  of  the  modern  spirit  in  science  and  art, 
were  currents  too  powerful  to  be  impeded  by  any 
reformer,  however  great,  and,  when  combined  in 
classicism,  were  to  reign  supreme  in  literature 
for  centuries  to  come.  But  Savonarola  and  Poli- 
ziano  serve  to  indicate  that  modern  literary  criti- 
cism had  not  yet  begun.  For  until  some  rational 
answer  to  the  objections  urged  against   poetry  in 

1  Cf.  Cartier,  L' EstMtique  de  Savonarole,  in  Didron's  An- 
nales  Archdologiques,  1847,  vii.  255  sq. 


16  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

antiquity  and  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  forthcom- 
ing, literary  criticism  in  any  true  sense  was  funda- 
mentally impossible;  and  that  answer  came  only 
with  the  recovery  of  Aristotle's  Poetics. 

III.     The  Final  Justification  of  Poetry 

The  iniluence  of  Aristotle's  Poetics  in  classical 
antiquity,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  judge,  was 
very  slight;  there  is  no  apparent  reference  to  the 
Poetics  in  Horace,  Cicero,  or  Quintilian,^  and  it 
was  entirely  lost  sight  of  during  the  Middle  Ages. 
Its  modern  transmission  wa,s  due  almost  exclu- 
sively to  Orientals.^  The  first  Oriental  version  of 
Aristotle's  treatise  appears  to  have  been  that  made 
by  Abu-Baschar,  a  Nestorian  Christian,  from  the 
Syriac  into  Arabic,  about  the  year  935.  Two 
centuries  later,  the  Moslem  philosopher  Averroes 
made  an  abridged  version  of  the  Poetics,  which 
was  translated  into  Latin  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, by  a  certain  German,  named  Hermann,  and 
again,  by  Mantinus  of  Tortosa  in  Spain,  in  the 
fourteenth  century.  Hermann's  version  seems  to 
have  circulated  considerably  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
but  it  had  no  traceable  influence  on  critical  lit- 
erature whatsoever.  It  is  mentioned  and  censured 
by  Roger  Bacon,  but  the  Poetics  in  any  form  was 
probably  unknown  to  Dante,  to  Boccaccio,  and 
beyond  a  single  obscure  reference,  to  Petrarch. 
Some  of  the  humanists,  such  as  Benvenuto  da 
Imola    in    his    coiamenUiry    on    Dante,    cite    the 

1  Egger,  '209  sq.  2  JUii  555  ,,y/. 


I.]  THE   FUNDAMENTAL   PROBLEM  17 

version  of  Averroes ;  but  the  critical  ideas  of 
the  period  show  slight  indicatiou  of  Aristotelian 
influence,  and  during  the  sixteenth  century  . 
itself  there  seems  to  have  been  a  well-defined 
impression  that  the  Poetics  had  been  recovered 
only  after  centuries  of  oblivion.  Thus,  Bernardo,** 
Segni,  who  translated  the  Poetics  into  Italian  in 
1549,  speaks  of  it  as  "abandoned  and  neglected 
for  a  long  time";^  and  Bernardo  Tasso,  some 
ten  years  later,  refers  to  it  as  "  buried  for  so 
long  a  time  in  the  obscure  shadows  of  igno- 
rance." ^ 

It  was  then  as  a  new  work  of  Aristotle  that  the 
Latin  translation  by  Giorgio  Valla,  published  at 
Venice  in  1498,  must  have  appeared  to  Valla's  con- 
temporaries. Though  hardly  successful  as  a  work 
of  scholarship,  this  translation,  and  the  Greek  text 
of  the  Poetics  published  in  the  Aldine  Rhetores 
Greed  in  1508,  had  considerable  influence  on  dra- 
matic literature,  but  scarcely  any  immediate  influ- 
ence on  literary  criticism.  Somewhat  later;  in 
1536,  Alessandro  de'  Pazzi  published  a  revised 
Latin  version,  accompanied  by  the  original ;  and 
from  this  time,  the  influence  of  the  Aristotelian 
canons  becomes  manifest  in  critical  literature.  In 
1548,  Robertelli  produced  the  first  critical  edition 
of  the  Poetics,  with  a  Latin  translation  and  a 
learned  commentary,  and  in  the  very  next  year  the 
first   Italian  translation  was  given   to  the  world 

1  Segni,  p.  160. 

2  B.  Tasso,  Lettere,  ii.  525.  So  also,  Robortelli,  1548,  "  Jacuit 
liber  hie  neglectus,  ad  nostra  fere  baec  usque  tempera." 

c 


18  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

by  Bernardo  Segni.  From  that  day  to  this  the  edi- 
tions and  translations  of  the  Poetics  have  increased 
beyond  number,  and  there  is  hardly  a  single  pas- 
sage in  Aristotle's  treatise  which  has  not  been  dis- 
cussed by  innumerable  commentators  and  critics. 

It  was  in  Aristotle's  Poetics  that  the  Renaissance 
was  to  find,  if  not  a  complete,  at  least  a  rational 
justification  of  poetry,  and  an  answer  to  every  one 
of  the  Platonic  and  mediaeval  objections  to  imagi- 
native literature.  As  to  the  assertion  that  poetry 
diverges  from  actual  reality,  Aristotle  ^  contended 
that  there  is  to  be  found  in  poetry  a  higher  reality 
than  that  of  mere  commonplace  fact,  that  poetry 
deals  not  with  particulars,  but  with  universals,  and 
that  it  aims  at  describing  not  what  has  been,  but 
what  might  have  been  or  ought  to  be.  In  other 
words,  poetry  has  little  regard  for  the  actuality  of 
the  specific  event,  but  aims  at  the  reality  of  an  eter- 
nal probability.  It  matters  not  whether  Achilles 
or  ^Eneas  did  this  thing,  or  that  thing,  which 
Homer  or  Virgil  ascribes  to  either,  but  if  Achilles 
or  ^neas  was  such  a  man  as  the  poet  describes,  he 
must  necessarily  act  as  Homer  or  Virgil  has  made 
him  do.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  Aristotle  is  here 
simply  distinguishing  between  ideal  truth  and 
actual  fact,  and  in  asserting  that  it  is  the  function 
of  poetry  to  imitate  only  ideal  truth  he  laid  the 
foundations,  not  only  of  an  answer  to  mediaeval 
objections,  but  also  of  modern  aesthetic  criticism. 

Beyond  this,  poetry  is  justified  on  the  grounds  of 
morality,  for  while  not  having  a  distinctly  moral 
1  Poet.  i.x. 


I.]  THE   FUNDAMENTAL  PROBLEM  19 

aim,  it  is  essentially  moral,  because  it  is  this  ideal 
representation  of  life,  and  an  idealized  version  of 
human  life  must  necessarily  present  it  in  its  moral 
aspects.  Aristotle  distinctly  combats  the  traditional 
Greek  conception  of  the  didactic  function  of  poetry ; 
but  it  is  evident  that  he  insists  fundamentally  that 
literature  must  be  moral,  for  he  sternly  rebukes 
Euripides  several  times  on  grounds  that  are  moral, 
rather  than  purely  aesthetic.  In  answer  to  the  ob- 
jection that  poetry,  instead  of  calming,  stirs  and 
excites  our  meanest  passions,  that  it  "  waters  and 
cherishes  those  emotions  which  ought  to  wither 
with  drought,  and  constitutes  them  our  rulers, 
when  they  ought  to  be  our  subjects,"^  Aristotle 
taught  those  in  the  Renaissance  who  were  able  to 
understand  him,  that  poetry,  and  especially  dra- 
matic poetry,  does  not  indeed  starve  the  emotions, 
but  excites  them  only  to  allay  and  to  regulate  them, 
and  in  this  aesthetic  process  purifies  and  ennobles 
them.^  In  pointing  out  these  things  he  has  justified 
the  utility  of  poetry,  regarding  it  as  more  serious  and 
philosophic  than  history,  because  it  universalizes 
mere  fact,  and  imitates  life  in  its  noblest  aspects. 

These  arguments  were  incorporated  into  Renais- 
sance criticism  ;  they  were  emphasized,  as  we  shall 
see,  over  and  over  again,  and  they  formed  the  basis 
of  the  justification  of  poetry  in  modern  critical 
literature.  At  the  same  time,  this  purely  aesthetic 
conception  of  art  did  not  prevail  by  itself  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  even  in  those  for  whom  Aristotle 
meant  most,  and  who  best  understood  his  meaning; 
1  Plato,  Rep.  X.  660.  2  Poet.  vi.  2 ;  Pol.  viii.  7. 


20  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY       [chap. 

the  Horatian  elements,  also,  as  found  in  the  early- 
humanists,  were  elaborated  and  discussed.  In  the 
Poetica  of  Daniello  (1536),  these  Horatian  elements 
form  the  basis  for  a  defence  of  poetry^  that  has 
many  marked  resemblances  to  various  passages  in 
Sir  Philip  Sidney's  Defence  of  Poesy.  After  re- 
ferring to  the  antiquity  and  nobility  of  poetry,  and 
afl&rming  that  no  other  art  is  nobler  or  more  ancient, 
Daniello  shows  that  all  things  known  to  man,  all 
the  secrets  of  God  and  nature,  are  described  by  the 
poets  in  musical  numbers  and  with  exquisite  orna- 
ment. He  furthermore  asserts,  in  the  manner  of 
Horace,  that  the  poets  were  the  inventors  of  the 
arts  of  life ;  and  in  answer  to  the  objection  that  it 
was  the  philosophers  who  in  reality  did  these  things, 
he  shows  that  while  instruction  is  more  proper  to 
the  philosopher  than  to  the  poet,  poets  teach  too, 
in  many  more  ways,  and  far  more  pleasantly,  than 
any  philosopher  can.  They  hide  their  useful  teach- 
ings under  various  fictions  and  fabulous  veils,  as 
the  physician  covers  bitter  medicine  with  a  sweet 
coating.  The  style  of  the  philosopher  is  dry  and 
obscure,  without  any  force  or  beauty  by  itself ;  and 
the  delightful  instruction  of  poetry  is  far  more 
effective  than  the  abstract  and  harsh  teachings  of 
philosophy.  Poetry,  indeed,  was  the  only  form  of 
philosophy  that  primitive  men  had,  and  Plato,  Avhile 
regarding  himself  as  an  enemy  of  poets,  was  really 
a  great  poet  himself,  for  he  expresses  all  his  ideas 
in  a  wondrously  harmonious  rhythm,  and  with  great 
splendor  of  words  and  images.  This  defence  of 
1  Daniello,  p.  10  sq . 


I.]  THE   FUNDAIVIENTAL   PROBLEM  21 

Danielle's  is  interesting,  as  anticipating  tlie  general 
form  of  such  apologies  throughout  the  sixteenth 
century. 

Similarly,  Minturno  in  his  De  Poeta  (1559),  elab- 
orates the  Horatian  suggestions  for  a  defence  of 
poetry.  He  begins  by  pointing  out  the  broad  in- 
clusiveness  of  poetry,  which  may  be  said  to  com- 
prehend in  itself  every  form  of  human  learning,  and 
by  showing  that  no  form  of  learning  can  be  found 
before  the  first  poets,  and  that  no  nation,  however 
barbarous,  has  ever  been  averse  to  poetry.  The 
Hebrews  praised  God  in  verse;  the  Greeks,  Ital- 
ians, Germans,  and  British  have  all  honored  poetry ; 
the  Persians  have  had  their  Magi  and  the  Gauls 
their  bards.  Verse,  while  not  essential  to  poetry, 
gives  the  latter  much  of  its  delightful  effectiveness, 
and  if  the  gods  ever  speak,  they  certainly  speak  in 
verse ;  indeed,  in  primitive  times  it  was  in  verse 
that  all  sciences,  history,  and  philosophy  were 
written.^ 

To  answer  the  traditional  objections  against  im- 
aginative literature  which  had  survived  beyond  the 
Middle  Ages  seemed  to  the  Renaissance  a  simpler 
task,  however,  than  to  answer  the  more  philosophi- 
cal objections  urged  in  the  Platonic  dialogues.  The 
authority  of  Plato  during  the  Renaissance  made  it 
impossible  to  slight  the  arguments  stated  by  him  in 
the  Republic,  and  elsewhere.  The  writers  of  this 
period  were  particularly  anxious  to  refute,  or  at 
least  to  explain  away,  the  reasons  for  which  Plato 
had  banished  poets  from  his  ideal  commonwealth. 
1  De  Poeta,  p.  13  sq. 


22  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY       [chap. 

Some  critics,  like  Bernardo  Tasso^  and  Daniello,* 
asserted  that  Plato  had  not  argued  against  poetry 
itself,  but  only  against  the  abuse  of  poetry.  Thus, 
according  to  Tasso,  only  impure  and  effeminate 
poets  were  to  be  excluded  from  the  ideal  state,  and 
according  to  Daniello,  only  the  more  immoral  tragic 
poets,  and  especially  the  authors  of  obscene  and 
lampooning  comedies.  Other  Renaissance  writers, 
like  Minturno  ^  and  Fracastoro,*  answered  the  Pla- 
tonic objections  on  more  philosophical  grounds. 
Thus  Fracastoro  answers  Plato's  charge  that,  since 
poetry  is  three  removes  from  ideal  truth,  poets 
are  fundamentally  ignorant  of  the  realities  they 
attempt  to  imitate,  by  pointing  out  that  the  poet  is 
indeed  ignorant  of  what  he  is  speaking  of,  in  so  far 
as  he  is  a  versifier  and  skilled  in  language,  just  as 
the  philosopher  or  historian  is  ignorant  of  natural 
or  historical  facts  in  so  far  as  he,  too,  is  merely 
skilled  in  language,  but  knows  these  facts  in  so  far  as 
he  is  learned,  and  has  thought  out  the  problems  of 
nature  and  history.  The  poet,  as  well  as  the  phil- 
osopher and  the  historian,  must  possess  knowledge, 
if  he  is  to  teach  anything  ;  he,  too,  must  learn  the 
things  he  is  going  to  write  about,  and  must  solve 
the  problems  of  life  and  thought;  he,  too,  must 
have  a  philosophical  and  an  historical  training. 
Plato's  objection,  indeed,  applies  to  the  philosopher, 
to  the  orator,  to  the  historian,  quite  as  much  as  to 
the  poet.  As  to  Plato's  second  charge,  that  imag- 
ination naturally  tends  toward  the  worst  things, 

1  Lettere,  ii.  526.  «  De  Poeta,  p.  30  sq. 

^  Poetica,  p.  14  sq.  *  Opera,  i.  361  sq. 


I.]  THE   FUNDAMENTAL   PROBLEM  23 

and  accordingly  that  poets  write  obscenely  and 
blasphemously,  Fracastoro  points  out  that  this  is 
not  the  fault  of  the  art,  but  of  those  who  abuse  it ; 
there  are,  indeed,  immoral  and  enervating  poets, 
and  they  ought  to  be  excluded,  not  only  from 
Plato's,  but  from  every  commonwealth.  Thus  va- 
rious Aristotelian  and  Horatian  elements  were 
combined  to  form  a  definite  body  of  Renaissance 
criticism. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   GENERAL   THEORY    OF   POETRY   IN  THE  ITALIAN 

RENAISSANCE 

In  the  first  book  of  his  Geography  Strabo  defines 
poetry  as  "  a  kind  of  elementary  philosophy,  which 
introduces  us  early  to  life,  and  gives  us  pleasura- 
ble instruction  in  reference  to  character,  emotion, 
action."  This  passage  sounds  the  kej^ote  of  the 
Renaissance  theory  of  poetry.  Poetry  is  therein 
stated  to  be  a  form  of  philosophy,  and,  moreover,  a 
philosophy  whose  subject  is  life,  and  its  object  is 
said  to  be  pleasurable  instruction. 

I.   Poetry  as  a  Form  of  Scholastic  Philosophy 

In  the  first  place,  poetry  is  a  form  of  philosophy. 
Savonarola  had  classed  poetry  with  logic  and 
grammar,  and  had  asserted  that  a  knowledge  of 
logic  is  essential  to  the  composing  of  poetry.  The 
division  of  the  sciences  and  the  relative  importance 
of  each  were  a  source  of  infinite  scholastic  discus- 
sion during  the  Middle  Ages.  Aristotle  had  first 
placed  dialectic  or  logic,  rhetoric,  and  poetics  in 
the  same  category  of  efficient  philosophy.  But 
Averroes  was  probably  the  first  to  confuse  the 
function  of  poetics  with  that  of  logic,  and  to  make 
24 


CHAP.  II.]    THE  GENERAL  THEOEY  OF  POETRY     25 

the  former  a  subdivision,  or  form,  of  the  latter ; 
and  this  classification  appears  to  have  been  ac- 
cepted by  the  scholastic  philosophers  of  the  Middle 
Ages. 

This  conception  of  the  position  of  poetry  in  the 
body  of  human  knowledge  may  be  found,  however, 
throughout  the  Renaissance.  Thus,  Robortelli,  in 
his  commentary  on  Aristotle's  Poetics  (1548),  gives 
the  usual  scholastic  distinctions  between  the  various 
forms  of  the  written  or  spoken  word  (oratio) :  the 
demonstrative,  which  deals  with  the  true ;  the  dia- 
lectic, which  deals  with  the  probable ;  the  rhetorical, 
with  the  persuasive ;  and  the  poetic,  with  the  false 
or  fabulous.^  By  the  term  "  false  "  or  "fabulous"  is 
meant  merely  that  the  subject  of  poetry  is  not 
actual  fact,  but  that  it  deals  with  things  as  they 
ought  to  be,  rather  than  as  they  are.  Varchi,  in  his 
public  lectures  on  poetry  (1553),  divides  philosophy 
into  two  forms,  real  and  rational.  Real  philosophy 
deals  with  things,  and  includes  metaphysics,  ethics, 
physics,  geometry,  and  the  like;  while  rational 
philosophy,  which  includes  logic,  dialectic,  rhet- 
oric, history,  poetry,  and  grammar,  deals  not  with 
things,  but  with  words,  and  is  not  philosophy 
proper,  but  the  instrument  of  philosophy.  Poetry 
is  therefore,  strictly  speaking,  neither  an  art  nor 
a  science,  but  an  instrument  or  faculty ;  and  it  is 
only  an  art  in  the  sense  that  it  has  been  reduced  to 
rules  and  precepts.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  form  of  logic, 
and  no  man,  according  to  Varchi,  can  be  a  poet 
unless  he  is  a  logician ;  the  better  logician  he  is, 
1  Eobortelli,  p.lsq. 


26  LITERARY   CRITICISM  IN   ITALY       [chap. 

the  better  poet  he  will  be.  Logic  and  poetry  dif- 
fer, however,  in  their  matter  and  their  instruments  ; 
for  the  subject  of  logic  is  truth,  arrived  at  by  means 
of  the  demonstrative  syllogism,  while  the  subject  of 
poetry  is  fiction  or  invention,  arrived  at  by  means 
of  that  form  of  the  syllogism  known  as  the  example. 
Here  the  enthymeme,  or  example,  which  Aristotle 
has  made  the  instrument  of  rhetoric,  becomes  the 
instrument  of  poetry. 

This  classification  survived  in  the  Aristotelian 
schools  at  Padua  and  elsewhere  as  late  as  Zabarella 
and  Campanella.  Zabarella,  a  professor  of  logic 
and  later  of  philosophy  at  Padua  from  1564  to 
1589,  explains  at  length  Averroes's  theory  that 
poetics  is  a  form  of  logic,  in  a  treatise  on  the 
nature  of  logic,  published  in  1578.^  He  concludes 
that  the  two  faculties,  logic  and  poetics,  are  not 
instruments  of  philosophy  in  general,  but  only  of  a 
part  of  it,  for  they  refer  rather  to  action  than  to 
knowledge;  that  is,  they  come  under  Aristotle's 
category  of  efficient  philosophy.  They  are  not  the 
instruments  of  useful  art  or  of  moral  philosophy, 
the  end  of  which  is  to  make  one's  self  good ;  but  of 
civil  philosophy,  the  end  of  which  is  to  make  others 
good.  If  it  be  objected  that  they  are  twv  cvavruov, 
that  is,  of  both  good  and  evil,  it  may  be  answered 
that  their  proper  end  is  good.     Thus,  in  the  Syvqjo- 

1  This  analysis  of  Zabarella,  Opera  Logiea,  De  Natura 
Logical,  ii.  13-23,  I  owe  to  the  kindness  of  Professor  Butcher 
of  Edinburgh.  Zabarella  probably  derived  his  knowledge  of 
Aristotle's  Poetics  from  Robortelli,  under  whom  he  studied 
Greek.    Qf.  Bayle,  Diet.  s.  v.  Zabarella. 


n.]    THE  GENERAL  THEORY  OF  POETRY    27 

siu7n,  the  true  poet  is  praised ;  while  in  the  Republic 
the  poets  who  aim  at  pleasure  and  who  corrupt  their 
audiences  are  censured ;  and  Aristotle  in  his  defini- 
tion of  tragedy  says  that  the  end  of  tragedy  is  to 
purge  the  passions  and  to  correct  the  morals  of  men 
(affectiones  animi  picrgare  et  mores  corrigere). 

Even  later  than  Zabarella,  we  find  in  the  Poetica 
of  Campanella  a  division  of  the  sciences  very  simi- 
lar to  that  of  Savonarola  and  Varchi.  Theology  is 
there  placed  at  the  head  of  all  knowledge,  in 
accordance  with  the  mediseval  tradition,  while 
poetics,  with  dialectic,  grammar,  and  rhetoric,  is 
placed  among  the  logical  sciences.  Considering 
poetica  as  a  form  of  philosophy,  another  commen- 
tator on  Aristotle,  Maggi  (1550),  takes  great  pains 
to  distinguish  its  various  manifestations.  Poetica 
is  the  art  of  composing  poetry,  poesis,  the  poetry 
composed  according  to  this  art,  poeta,  the  composer 
of  poetry,  and  poema,  a  single  specimen  of  poetry.^ 
This  distinction  is  a  commonplace  of  classical 
criticism,  and  appears  in  Varro,  Plutarch,  Her- 
mogenes,  and  Aphthonius. 

II.    Poetry  as  an  Imitation  of  Life 

In  the  second  place,  according  to  the  passage 
from  Strabo  cited  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter, 
poetry  introduces  us  early  to  life,  or,  in  other  words, 
its  subject  is  human  action,  and  it  is  what  Aristotle 
calls   it,  an  imitation  of  human  life.     This  raises 

1  Maggi,  p.  28  $q.  Cf.  B.  Tasso,  Lettere,  ii.  514;  Scaliger, 
Poet.  i.  2 ;  Castelvetro,  Poetica,  p.  7 ;  Salviati,  Cod.  Magliabech. 
ii.  ii.  11,  fol.  384  v. ;  B.  Jonson,  Timber,  p.  74. 


28  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY      [chap. 

two  distinct  problems.  First,  what  is  the  meaning 
of  imitation  ?  and  what  in  life  is  the  subject-matter 
of  this  imitation  ? 

The  conception  of  imitation  held  by  the  critics  of 
the  Renaissance  was  that  expressed  by  Aristotle  in 
the  ninth  chapter  of  the  Poetics.  The  passage  is  as 
follows :  — 

"  It  is  evident  from  what  has  been  said  that  it  is  not  the 
fimction  of  the  poet  to  relate  what  has  happened,  but  what 
may  happen,  —  what  is  possible  according  to  the  law  of 
probability  or  necessity.  The  poet  and  the  historian  differ 
not  by  writing  in  verse  or  in  prose.  The  work  of  Herodotus 
might  be  put  into  verse,  and  it  would  still  be  a  species  of 
history,  with  metre  no  less  than  without  it.  The  true  dif- 
ference is  that  one  relates  what  has  happened,  the  other 
what  may  happen.  Poetry,  therefore,  is  a  more  philosophi- 
cal and  a  higher  thing  than  history  ;  for  poetry  tends  to  ex- 
press the  universal,  history  the  particular.  The  universal 
tells  us  how  a  person  of  given  character  will  on  occasion 
speak  or  act,  according  to  the  law  of  probability  or  neces- 
sity ;  and  it  is  this  universality  at  which  poetry  aims  in  giv- 
ing expressive  names  to  the  characters." 

In  this  passage  Aristotle  has  briefly  formulated 
a  conception  of  ideal  imitation  which  may  be  re- 
garded as  universally  valid,  and  which,  repeated 
over  and  over  again,  became  the  basis  of  Renais- 
sance criticism. 

In  the  Poetica  of  Daniello  (1536),  occurs  the 
first  allusion  in  modern  literary  criticism  to  the 
Aristotelian  notion  of  ideal  imitation.  According 
to  Daniello,  the  poet,  unlike  the  historian,  can  min- 
gle fictions  with  facts,  because  he  is  not  obliged, 


n.]        THE   GENERAL  THEORY  OF  POETRY        29 

as  is  the  historian,  to  describe  things  as  they  actu- 
ally are  or  have  been,  but  rather  as  they  ought  to 
be ;  and  it  is  in  this  that  the  poet  most  differs  from 
the  historian,  and  not  in  the  writing  of  verses ;  for 
even  if  Livy's  works  were  versified,  they  would 
still  be  histories  as  before.^  This  is  of  course 
almost  a  paraphrase  of  the  passage  in  Aristotle; 
but  that  Daniello  did  not  completely  understand 
the  ideal  element  in  Aristotle's  conception  is  shown 
by  the  further  distinction  which  he  draws  be- 
tween the  historian  and  the  poet.  For  he  adds 
that  the  poet  and  the  historian  have  much  in  com- 
mon; in  both  there  are  descriptions  of  places, 
peoples,  laws ;  both  contain  the  representation  of 
vices  and  virtues  ;  in  both,  amplification,  variety, 
and  digressions  are  proper ;  and  both  teach,  delight, 
and  profit  at  the  same  time.  They  differ,  how- 
ever, in  that  the  historian,  in  telling  his  story, 
recounts  it  exactly  as  it  happened,  and  adds  noth- 
ing; whereas  the  poet  is  permitted  to  add  whatever 
he  desires,  so  long  as  the  fictitious  events  have  all 
the  appearance  of  truth. 

Somewhat  later,  Eobortelli  treats  the  question 
of  aesthetic  imitation  from  another  point  of  view. 
The  poet  deals  with  things  as  they  ought  to  be,  but 
he  can  either  appropriate  actual  fact,  or  he  can  invent 
his  material.  If  he  does  the  former,  he  narrates 
the  truth  not  as  it  really  happened,  but  as  it 
might  or  ought  to  happen ;  while  if  he  invents  his 
material,  he  must  do  so  in  accordance  with  the  law 
of  possibility,  or  necessity,  or  probability  and  veri- 
1  Daniello,  p.  41  sq. 


30  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

similitude.^  Thus  Xenophon,  in  describing  Cyrus, 
does  not  depict  him  as  he  actually  was,  but  as  the 
best  and  noblest  king  can  be  and  ought  to  be ;  and 
Cicero,  in  describing  the  orator,  follows  the  same 
method.  From  this  it  is  evident  that  the  poet  can 
invent  things  transcending  the  order  of  nature; 
but  if  he  does  so,  he  should  describe  what  might  or 
ought  to  have  been. 

Here  Robortelli  answers  a  possible  objection  to 
Aristotle's  statement  that  poets  deal  only  with 
what  is  possible  and  verisimilar.  Is  it  possible 
and  verisimilar  that  the  gods  should  eat  ambrosia 
and  drink  nectar,  as  Homer  describes,  and  that 
such  a  being  as  Cerberus  should  have  several 
heads,  as  we  find  in  Virgil,  not  to  mention  various 
improbable  things  that  occur  in  many  other  poets  ? 
The  answer  to  such  an  objection  is  that  poets  can 
invent  in  two  ways.  They  can  invent  either  things 
according  to  nature  or  things  transcending  nature. 
In  the  former  case,  these  things  must  be  in  keep- 
ing with  the  laws  of  probability  and  necessity ;  but 
in  the  latter  case,  the  things  are  treated  according 
to  a  process  described  by  Aristotle  himself,  and 
called  paralogism,  which  means,  not  necessarily 
false  reasoning,  but  the  natural,  if  quite  inconclu- 
sive, logical  inference  that  the  things  we  know  not 
of  are  subject  to  the  same  laws  as  the  things  we 
know.  The  poets  accept  the  existence  of  the  gods 
from  the  common  notion  of  men,  and  then  treat  all 
that  relates  to  these  deities  in  accordance  with  this 
system  of  paralogism.  In  tragedy  and  comedy 
1  Robortelli,  p.  86  nq. 


II.]         THE   GENERAL   THEORY   OF   POETRY        31 

men  are  described  as  acting  in  accordance  with  the 
ordinary  occurrences  of  nature ;  but  in  epic  poetry 
this  is  not  entirely  the  case,  and  the  marvellous  is 
therefore  admitted.  Accordingly,  this  marvellous 
element  has  the  widest  scope  in  epic  poetry ;  while 
in  comedy,  which  treats  of  things  nearest  to  our 
own  time,  it  ought  not  to  be  admitted  at  all. 

But  there  is  another  problem  suggested  by  the 
passage  from  the  Poetics  which  has  been  cited. 
Aristotle  says  that  imitation,  and  not  metre,  is  the 
test  of  poetry ;  that  even  if  a  history  were  versi- 
fied, it  would  still  remain  history.  The  question 
then  arises  whether  a  writer  who  imitates  in  prose, 
that  is,  without  verse,  would  be  worthy  of  the  title 
of  poet.  Robortelli  answers  this  question  by  point- 
ing out  that  metre  does  not  constitute  the  nature, 
force,  or  essence  of  poetry,  which  depends  entirely 
on  the  fact  of  imitation ;  but  at  the  same  time, 
while  one  who  imitates  without  verse  is  a  poet,  in 
the  best  and  truest  poetry  imitation  and  metre  are 
combined.^ 

In  Fracastoro's  Naugerius,  sive  de  Poetica  Dia- 
logus  (1555),  there  is  the  completest  explanation 
of  the  ideal  element  in  the  Aristotelian  conception 
of  imitation.  The  poet,  according  to  Aristotle,  dif- 
fers from  other  writers  in  that  the  latter  consider 
merely  the  particular,  while  the  poet  aims  at  the 
universal.  He  is,  in  other  words,  attempting  to 
describe  the  simple  and  essential  truth  of  things, 
not  by  depicting  the  nude  thing  as  it  is,  but  the 
idea  of  things  clothed  in  all  their  beauties.-  Here 
1  Robortelli,  p.  90  sq.  2  Fracastoro,  i.  340. 


32  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY       [chap. 

Fracastoro  attempts  to  explain  the  Aristotelian  con- 
ception of  the  type  with  the  aid  of  the  Platonic 
notion  of  beauty.  There  were,  in  fact,  in  the 
Kenaissance,  three  conceptions  of  beauty  in  gen- 
eral vogue.  First,  the  purely  objective  conception 
that  beauty  is  fixed  or  formal,  that  it  consists  in 
approximating  to  a  certain  mechanical  or  geometri- 
cal form,  such  as  roundness,  squareness,  or  straight- 
ness;  secondly,  the  Platonic  conception,  ethical 
rather  than  aesthetic,  connecting  the  beautiful  with 
the  good,  and  regarding  both  as  the  manifestation 
of  divine  power;  and,  thirdly,  a  more  purely  aes- 
thetic conception  of  beauty,  connecting  it  either 
with  grace  or  conformity,  or  in  a  higher  sense  with 
whatever  is  proper  or  fitting  to  an  object.  This 
last  idea,  which  at  times  approaches  the  modern 
conception  that  beauty  consists  in  the  realization 
of  the  objective  character  of  any  particular  thing 
and  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  law  of  its  own  being, 
seems  to  have  been  derived  from  the  Idea  of  the 
Greek  rhetorician  Hermogenes,  whose  influence 
during  the  sixteenth  century  was  considerable, 
even  as  early  as  the  time  of  Filelfo.  It  was  the 
celebrated  rhetorician  Giulio  Cammillo,  however, 
who  appears  to  have  popularized  Hermogenes  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  by  translating  the  Idea  into 
Italian,  and  by  expounding  it  in  a  discourse  pub- 
lished posthumously  in  1544. 

As  will  be  seen,  Fracastoro's  conception  of  beauty 
a,pproximates  both  to  the  Platonic  and  to  the  more 
purely  aesthetic  doctrines  which  we  have  men- 
tioned;   and    he    expounds    and    elaborates    this 


11.]        THE   GENEKAL  THEORY  OF  POETEY        33 

aesthetic  notion  in  the  following  manner.  Each 
art  has  its  own  rules  of  proper  expression.  The 
historian  or  the  philosopher  does  not  aim  at  all  the 
beauties  or  elegancies  of  expression,  but  only  such 
as  are  proper  to  history  or  philosophy.  But  to  the 
poet  no  grace,  no  embellishment,  no  ornament,  is 
ever  alien ;  he  does  not  consider  the  particular 
beauty  of  any  one  field,  —  that  is,  the  singular,  or 
particular,  of  Aristotle,  —  but  all  that  pertains  to 
the  simple  idea  of  beauty  and  of  beautiful  speech. 
Yet  this  universalized  beauty  is  no  extraneous 
thing;  it  cannot  be  added  to  objects  in  which  it 
has  no  place,  as  a  golden  coat  on  a  rustic ;  all  the 
essential  beauty  of  each  species  is  to  be  the  es- 
pecial regard  of  the  poet.  For  in  imitating  per- 
sons and  things,  he  neglects  no  beauty  or  elegance 
which  he  can  attribute  to  them;  he  strives  only 
after  the  most  beautiful  and  most  excellent,  and 
in  this  way  affects  the  minds  of  men  in  the  direc- 
tion of  excellence  and  beauty. 

This  suggests  a  problem  which  is  at  the  very 
root  of  Aristotle's  conception  of  ideal  imitation ; 
and  it  is  Fracastoro's  high  merit  that  he  was  one 
of  the  first  writers  of  the  Renaissance  to  explain 
away  the  objection,  and  to  formulate  in  the  most 
perfect  manner  what  Aristotle  really  meant.  For, 
even  granting  that  the  poet  teaches  more  than 
others,  may  it  not  be  urged  that  it  is  not  what  per- 
tains to  the  thing  itself,  but  the  beauties  which  he 
adds  to  them,  —  that  it  is  ornament,  extraneous  to 
the  thing  itself  (extra  rem),  and  not  the  thing 
itself,  —  which  seems  to  be  the  chief  regard  of  the 


34  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY      [chap. 

poet  ?  But  after  all,  what  is  extra  rem  ?  Are 
beautiful  columns,  domes,  peristyles  extra  rem, 
because  a  thatched  roof  will  protect  us  from  rain 
and  frost ;  or  is  noble  raiment  extra  rem,  because 
a  rustic  garment  would  sufB.ce  ?  The  poet,  so  far 
from  adding  anything  extraneous  to  the  things 
he  imitates,  depicts  them  in  their  very  essence; 
and  it  is  because  he  alone  finds  the  true  beauty  in 
things,  because  he  attributes  to  them  their  true 
nobility  and  perfection,  that  he  is  more  useful  than 
any  other  writer.  The  poet  does  not,  as  some 
think,  deal  with  the  false  and  the  unreal.^  He 
assumes  nothing  openly  alien  to  truth,  though  he 
may  permit  himself  to  treat  of  old  and  obscure 
legends  which  cannot  be  verified,  or  of  things 
which  are  regarded  as  true  on  account  of  their  ap- 
pearance, their  allegorical  signification  (such  as  the 
ancient  myths  and  fables),  or  their  common  accept- 
ance by  men.  So  we  may  conclude  that  not  every 
one  who  uses  verse  is  a  poet,  but  only  he  who  is 
moved  by  the  true  beauty  of  things  —  by  their 
simple  and  essential  beauties,  not  merely  apparent 
ones.  This  is  Fracastoro's  conclusion,  and  it  con- 
tains that  mingling  of  Platonism  and  Aristote- 
lianism  which  may  be  found  somewhat  later  in 
Tasso  and  Sir  Philip  Sidney.  It  is  the  chief  merit 
of  Fracastoro's  dialogue,  that  even  while  emphasiz- 
ing this  Platonic  element,  he  clearly  distinguishes 
and  defines  the  ideal  element  in  aesthetic  imitation. 
About  the  same  time,  in  the  public  lectures  of 
Varchi  (1553),  there  was  an  attempt  to  formulate 
1  Fracastoro,  i,357sq. 


II.]         THE   GENERAL   THEORY   OF   POETRY        35 

a  more  explicit  definition  of  poetry  on  the  basis  of 
Aristotle's  definition^  of  tragedy.  Poetry,  accord- 
ing to  Varchi,  is  an  imitation  of  certain  actions, 
passions,  habits  of  mind,  with  song,  diction,  and 
harmony,  together  or  separately,  for  the  purpose  of 
removing  the  vices  of  men  and  inciting  them  to 
virtue,  in  order  that  they  may  attain  their  true 
happiness  and  beatitude.^  In  the  first  place,  poetry 
is  an  imitation.  Every  poet  imitates,  and  any  one 
who  does  not  imitate  cannot  be  called  a  poet. 
Accordingly,  Varchi  follows  Maggi  in  distinguish- 
ing three  classes  of  poets, — the  poets  par  excellence, 
who  imitate  in  verse ;  the  poets  who  imitate  with- 
out using  verse,  such  as  Lucian,  Boccaccio  in  the 
Decameron,  and  Sannazaro  in  the  Arcadia;  and  the 
poets,  commonly  but  less  properly  so  called,  who 
use  verse,  but  who  do  not  imitate.  Verse,  while 
not  an  essential  attribute  of  poetry,  is  generally 
required;  for  men's  innate  love  of  harmony, accord- 
ing to  Aristotle,  was  one  of  the  causes  that  gave 
rise  to  poetic  composition.  Certain  forms  of  poe- 
try however,  such  as  tragedy,  cannot  be  written 
without  verse ;  for  "  embellished  language,"  that 
is,  verse,  is  included  in  the  very  definition  of 
tragedy  as  given  by  Aristotle. 

The  question  whether  poetry  cotild  be  written 
in  prose  was  a  source  of  much  discussion  in  the 
Renaissance;  but  the  consensus  of  opinion  was 
overwhelmingly  against  the  prose  drama.  Comedy 
in  prose  was  the  usual  Italian  practice  of  this 
period,  and  various  scholars^  even  sanction  the 
1  Poet.  vi.  2.       2  Varchi,  p.  578.        3  E.g.  Piccolomini,  p.  27  sq. 


36  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY      [chap. 

practice  on  theoretical  grounds.  But  the  contro- 
versy was  not  brought  to  a  head  until  the  publica- 
tion of  Agostino  Michele's  Discorso  in  cui  si  dimos- 
tra  come  si  possono  scrivere  le  Commedie  e  le  Tragedie 
in  Prosa  in  1592;  and  eight  years  later,  in  1600, 
Paolo  Beni  published  his  Latin  dissertation,  Dis- 
putatio  in  qua  ostenditur  prcestare  Comoe,diatn  atque 
Tragoediam  metrorum  vinculis  solvere}  The  lan- 
guage of  Beni's  treatise  was  strong  —  its  very  title 
speaks  of  liberating  the  drama  from  the  shackles 
of  verse ;  and  for  a  heresy  of  this  sort,  couched  as 
it  was  in  language  that  might  even  have  been  revo- 
lutionary enough  for  the  French  romanticists  of 
1830,  the  sixteenth  century  was  not  yet  fully  pre- 
pared. Faustino  Summo,  answering  Beni  in  the 
same  year,  asserts  that  not  only  is  it  improper  for 
tragedy  and  comedy  to  be  written  in  prose,  but 
that  no  form  of  poetry  whatever  can  properly  be 
composed  without  the  accompaniment  of  verse.^ 
The  result  of  the  whole  controversy  was  to  fix  the 
metrical  form  of  the  drama  throughout  the  period 
of  classicism.  But  it  need  not  be  said  that  the 
same  conclusion  was  not  accepted  by  all  for  every 
form  of  poetry.  The  remark  of  Cervantes  in  Don 
Quixote,  that  epics  can  be  written  in  prose  as  well  as 
in  verse,  is  well  known ;  and  Julius  Csesar  Scaliger ' 
speaks  of  Heliodorus's  romance  as  a  model  epic. 
-  Scaliger,  however,  regards  verse  as  a  funda- 
mental part  of  poetry.  For  him,  poetry  and  his- 
tory have  the  forms  of  narration  and  ornament  in 

1  Tiraboschi,  vii.  1331.  «  Poet.  iii.  96. 

2  Summo,  pp.  ()l-(39. 


II.]         THE   GENERAL   THEORY   OF   POETRY         37 

common,  but  differ  in  that  poetry  adds  fictions  to 
the  things  that  are  true,  or  imitates  actual  things 
with  fictitious  ones,  —  majore  sane  apparatu,  that 
is,  among  other  things,  with  verse.  As  a  result  of 
this  notion,  Scaliger  asserts  that  if  the  history  of 
Herodotus  were  versified,  it  would  no  longer  be 
history,  but  historical  poetry.  Under  no  circum- 
stances, theoretically,  will  he  permit  the  separation 
of  poetry  from  mere  versification.  He  accordingly 
dismisses  with  contempt  the  usual  argument  of  the 
period  that  Lucan  was  an  historian  rather  than  a 
poet.  "Take  an  actual  history,"  says  Scaliger; 
"  how  does  Lucan  differ,  for  example,  from  Livy  ? 
He  differs  in  using  verse.  Well,  then  he  is  a  poet." 
Poetry,  then,  is  imitation  in  verse ;  ^  but  in  imitat- 
irwg  what  ought  to  be  rather  than  what  is,  the  poet 
creates  another  nature  and  other  fortunes,  as  if  he 
were  another  God.^ 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  discussions  that  the 
Renaissance  always  conceived  of  aesthetic  imitation 
in  this  ideal  sense.  There  are  scarcely  any  traces 
of  realism,  in  anything  like  its  modern  sense,  in 
the  literary  criticism  of  this  period.  Torquato 
Tasso  does  indeed  say  that  art  becomes  most  per- 
fect as  it  approaches  most  closely  to  nature ;  ^  and 

iPoe«.  i.  1. 

2  Another  critic  of  the  time,  Vettori,  1560,  pp.  14,  93,  attacks 
poetic  prose  on  the  ground  that  in  Aristotle's  definition  of  the 
various  poetic  forms,  verse  is  always  spoken  of  as  an  essential 
part.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  phrase  "  poetic  prose  " 
is  used,  perhaps  for  the  first  time,  in  Minturno,  Arte  Poetica, 
1564,  p.  3,  etc. 

3  Opere,  x.  254.     Cf.  Minturno,  Arte  Poetica,  p.  33. 


38  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN  ITALY       [chap. 

Scaliger  declares  that  the  dramatic  poet  must  beyond 
all  things  aim  at  reproducing  the  actual  conditions 
of  life.^  But  it  is  the  appearance  of  reality,  and 
not  the  mere  actuality  itself,  that  the  critics  are 
speaking  of  here.  With  the  vast  body  of  mediaeval 
literature  before  them,  in  which  impossibilities  fol- 
low upon  impossibilities,  and  the  sense  of  reality  is 
continually  obscured,  the  critical  writers  of  the 
Renaissance  were  forced  to  lay  particular  stress  on 
the  element  of  probability,  the  element  of  close 
approach  to  the  seeming  realities  of  life;  but  the 
imitation  of  Jif e  is  for  them,  nevertheless,  an  imita- 
tion of  things  as  they  ought  to  be  —  in  other  words, 
the  imitation  is  ideal.  Muzio  says  that  nature  is 
adorned  by  art :  — 

"  Suol  far  1'  opere  sue  roze,  e  tra  le  mani 
Lasciarle  a  P  arte,  che  le  adorui  e  limi ; "  2 

and  he  distinctly  affirms  that  the  poet  cannot  re- 
main content  with  exact  portraiture,  with  the  mere 
actuality  of  life :  — 

"  Lascia  '1  vero  a  1'  historia,  e  ne'  tuoi  versi 
Sotto  i  nomi  privati  a  1'  universe 
Mostra  che  fare  e  che  nou  far  si  debbia." 

In  keeping  with  this  idealized  conception  of  art, 
Muzio  asserts  that  everything  obscene  or  immoral 
must  be  excluded  from  poetry;  and  this  puristic 
notion  of  art  is  everywhere  emphasized  in  Renais- 
sance criticism.  It  was  the  verisimile,  as  has  been 
said,  that  the  writers  of  this  period  especially  in- 
sisted upon.  Poetry  must  have  the  appearance  of 
1  Poet.  ill.  96.  2  Muzio,  p.  69. 


II.]         THE   GENERAL   THEORY   OF   POETRY         39 

truth,  that  is,  it  must  be  probable ;  for  unless  the 
reader  believes  what  he  reads,  his  spirit  cannot  be 
moved  by  the  poem.^  This  anticipates  Boileau's 
famous  line :  — 

"  L'esprit  n'est  point  ^mu  de  ce  qu'il  ne  croit  pas."  ' 

But  beyond  and  above  the  verisimile,  the  poet 
must  pay  special  regard  to  the  ethical  element 
{il  lodevole  e  Vonesto).  A  poet  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  Palingenius,  says  that  there  are  three 
qualities  required  of  every  poem :  — 

"  Atqui  scire  opus  est,  triplex  genus  esse  bonorum, 
Utile,  delectans,  majusque  ambobus  honestum."  ^ 

Poetry,  then,  is  an  ideal  representation  of  life; 
but  should  it  be  still  further  limited,  and  made  an 
imitation  of  only  human  life?  In  other  words,  are 
the  actions  of  men  the  only  possible  themes  of 
poetry,  or  may  it  deal,  as  in  the  Georgics  and  the 
De  Merum  Natura,  with  the  various  facts  of  external 
nature  and  of  science,  which  are  only  indirectly 
connected  with  human  life?  May  poetry  treat  of 
the  life  of  the  world  as  well  as  of  the  life  of  men ; 
and  if  only  of  the  latter,  is  it  to  be  restricted  to 
the  actions  of  men,  or  may  it  also  depict  their 
passions,  emotions,  and  character  ?  In  short,  how 
far  may  external  nature  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
internal  working  of  the  human  soul  on  the  other 
hand,  be  regarded  as  the  subject-matter  of  poetry? 
Aristotle  says  that  poetry  deals  with  the  actions  of 

1  Giraldi  Cintio,  i.  61. 

2  Art  Poet.  iii.  50.     Cf.  Horace,  Ars  Poet.  188. 

3  Zodiac.  Vitas,  i.  143. 


40  LITERAKY  CRITICISM   IN  ITALY       [chap. 

men,  but  he  uses  the  word  "  actions "  in  a  larger 
sense  than  many  of  the  Renaissance  critics  appear 
to  have  believed.  His  real  meaning  is  thus  ex- 
plained by  a  modern  writer:  — 

"  Everything  that  expresses  the  mental  life,  that  reveals 
a  rational  personality,  will  fall  within  this  larger  sense  of 
action.  .  .  .  The  phrase  is  virtually  an  equivalent  for  TjOrf 
(character),  irddr]  (emotion),  wpd^eLs  (action).  .  .  .  The 
common  original  from  which  all  the  arts  draw  is  human  life, 
—  its  mental  processes,  its  spiritual  movements,  its  outward 
acts  issuing  from  deeper  sources  ;  in  a  word,  all  that  con- 
stitutes the  inward  and  essential  activity  of  the  soul.  On 
this  principle  landscape  and  animals  are  not  ranked  among 
the  objects  of  sesthetic  imitation.  The  whole  universe  is  not 
conceived  of  as  the  raw  material  of  art.  Aristotle's  theory 
is  in  agreement  with  the  practice  of  the  Greek  poets  and 
artists  of  the  classical  period,  who  introduce  the  external 
world  only  so  far  as  it  forms  a  background  of  action,  and 
enters  as  an  emotional  element  into  man's  life  and  heightens 
the  human  interest."  ^ 

Aristotle  distinctly  says  that  "  even  if  a  treatise 
on  medicine  or  natural  philosophy  be  brought  out 
in  verse,  the  name  of  poet  is  by  custom  given  to 
the  author;  and  yet  Homer  and  Empedocles  have 
nothing  in  common  except  the  material ;  the  former, 
therefore,  is  properly  styled  poet,  the  latter,  physi- 
cist rather  than  poet.  "  ^ 

The  Aristotelian  doctrine  was  variously  conceived 
during  the  Renaissance.  Fracastoro,  for  example, 
asserts  that  the  imitation  of  human  life  alone  is  not 
of  itself  a  test  of  poetry,  for  such  a  test  would 
exclude  Empedocles  and  Lucretius ;  it  would  make 

1  Butcher,  pp.  117,  118.  a  Poet.  i.  8. 


II.]        THE   GENERAL  THEORY  OF  POETRY        41 

Virgil  a  poet  in  tlie  ^neid,  and  not  a  poet  in  the 
Georgics.  All  matters  are  proper  material  for  the 
poet,  as  Horace  says,  if  they  are  treated  poetically ; 
and  although  the  imitation  of  men  and  women  may 
seem  to  be  of  higher  importance  for  us  who  are 
men  and  women,  the  imitation  of  human  life  is  no 
more  the  poet's  end  than  the  imitation  of  anything 
else.^  This  portion  of  Fracastoro's  argument  may 
be  called  apologetic,  for  the  imitation  of  human 
actions  as  a  test  of  poetry  would  exclude  most  of 
his  own  poems,^  such  as  his  famous  De  Morbo 
Gallico  (1529),  written  before  the  influence  of 
Aristotle  was  felt  in  anything  but  the  mere  ex- 
ternal forms  of  creative  literature.  For  Fracastoro, 
all  things  poetically  treated  become  poetry,  and 
Aristotle  himself^  says  that  everything  becomes 
pleasant  when  correctly  imitated.  So  that  not  the 
mere  composition  of  verse,  but  the  Platonic  rap- 
ture, the  delight  in  the  true  and  essential  beauty  of 
things,  is  for  Fracastoro  the  test  of  poetic  power. 

Varchi,  on  the  other  hand,  is  more  in  accord  with 
Aristotle,  in  conceiving  of  '^  action,"  the  subject- 
matter  of  poetry,  as  including  the  passions  and 
habits  of  mind  as  well  as  the  merely  external 
actions  of  mankind.  By  passions  Varchi  means 
those  mental  perturbations  which  impel  us  to  an 
action  at  any  particular  time  {irdOrj) ;  while  by 
manners,  or  habits  of  mind,  he  means  those  mental 
qualities  which  distinguish  one  man  or  one  class 
of  men  from  another  (rj6r}).      The  exclusion  of  the 

1  Fracastoro,  i.  335  sq.  3  Shet.  i.  11. 

2  Cf.  Castelvetro,  Foetica,  p.  27  sq. 


42  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

emotional  or  introspective  side  of  human  life  would 
leave  all  lyric  and,  in  fact,  all  subjective  verse  out 
of  tlie  realms  of  poetry ;  and  it  was  therefore  essen- 
tial, in  an  age  in  which  Petrarch  was  worshipped, 
that  the  subjective  side  of  poetry  should  receive 
its  justification.^  There  is  also  in  Varchi  a  most  in- 
teresting comparison  between  the  arts  of  poetry  and 
painting.^  The  basis  of  his  distinction  is  Horace's 
ut  pictura  poesis,  doubtless  founded  on  the  parallel 
of  Simonides  preserved  for  us  by  Plutarch;  and 
this  distinction,  which  regarded  painting  as  silent 
poetry,  and  poetry  as  painting  in  language,  may  be 
considered  almost  the  keynote  of  Renaissance  criti- 
cism, continuing  even  up  to  the  time  of  Lessing. 

In  Capriano's  DellaVera  Poetica  (1555)  poetry  is 
given  a  preeminent  place  among  all  the  arts,  because 
it  does  not  merely  deal  with  actions  or  with  the  ob- 
jects of  any  single  sense.  For  Capriano,  poetry  is 
an  ideal  representation  of  life,  and  as  such  "  vere 
nutrice  e  amatrice  del  nostro  bene."^  All  sensuous 
or  comprehensible  objects  are  capable  of  being  imi- 
tated by  various  arts.  The  nobler  of  the  imitative 
arts  are  concerned  with  the  objects  of  the  nobler 
senses,  while  the  ignobler  arts  are  concerned  with 
the  objects  of  the  senses  of  taste,  touch,  and  smell. 
Poetry  is  the  finest  of  all  the  arts,  because  it  com- 
prehends in  itself  all  the  faculties  and  powers  of 
the  other  arts,  and  can  in  fact  imitate  anything,  as, 
for  example,  the  form  of  a  lion,  its  color,  its  feroc- 
ity, its  roar,  and  the  like.  It  is  also  the  highest 
form  of  art  because  it  makes  use  of  the  most  effi- 
1  Cf.  A  Segni,  1581,  cap.  i.    ^  Varchi,  p.  227  sq.    8  Capriano,  cap.  ii. 


II.]    THE  GENERAL  THEORY  OF  POETRY    43 

cacious  means  of  imitation,  namely,  words,  and  es- 
pecially since  these  receive  the  additional  beauty  and 
power  of  rhythm.  Accordingly,  Capriano  divides 
poets  into  two  classes :  natural  poets,  who  describe  the 
things  of  nature,  and  moral  poets  (such  as  epic  and 
tragic  poets),  who  aim  at  presenting  moral  lessons 
and  indicating  the  uses  of  life;  and  of  these  two 
classes  the  moral  poets  are  to  be  rated  above  the 
natural  poets. 

But  if  all  things  are  the  objects  of  poetic  imita- 
tion, the  poet  must  know  everything ;  he  must  have 
studied  nature  as  well  as  life;  and,  accordingly, 
Lionardi,  in  his  dialogues  on  poetic  imitation  (1554), 
says  that  to  be  a  good  poet,  one  must  be  a  good 
historian,  a  good  orator,  and  a  good  natural  and 
moral  philosopher  as  well ;  ^  and  Bernardo  Tasso 
asserts  that  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  art 
of  poetry  is  only  to  be  gained  from  the  study  of 
Aristotle's  Poetics,  combined  with  a  knowledge  of 
philosophy  and  the  various  arts  and  sciences,  and 
vast  experience  of  the  world.*  The  Renaissance,  with 
its  humanistic  tendencies,  never  quite  succeeded 
in  discriminating  between  erudition  and  genius. 
Scaliger  says  that  nothing  which  proceeds  from 
solid  learning  can  ever  be  out  of  place  in  poetry, 
and  Fracastoro  (1555)  and  Tomitano  (1545)  both 
affirm  that  the  good  poet  and  the  good  orator  must 
essentially  be  learned  scholars  and  philosophers. 
Scaliger  therefore  distinguishes  three  classes  of 
poets,  —  first,  the  theological  poets,  such  as  Or- 
pheus and  Amphion;  secondly,  the  philosophical 
1  Lionardi,  p.  43  sq.  *  Lettere,  ii.  525. 


44  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY       [chap. 

poets,  of  two  sorts,  natural  poets,  such  as  Empedo- 
cles  and  Lucretius,  and  moral  poets,  who  again  are 
either  political,  as  Solon  and  Tyrtaeus,  economic,  as 
Hesiod,  or  common,  as  Phocyllides;  and,  thirdly, 
the  ordinary  poets  who  imitate  human  life.^  The 
last  are  divided  according  to  the  usual  Eenaissance 
classification  into  dramatic,  narrative,  and  common 
or  mixed.  Scaliger's  classification  is  employed  by 
Sir  Philip  Sidney ;  ^  and  a  very  similar  subdivision 
is  given  by  Minturno.^ 

The  treatment  of  Castelvetro,  in  his  commentary 
on  the  Poetics  (1570),  is  at  times  much  more  in  ac- 
cord with  the  true  Aristotelian  conception  than 
most  of  the  other  Renaissance  writers.  While  fol- 
lowing Aristotle  in  asserting  that  verse  is  not  of  the 
essence  of.  poetry,  he  shows  that  Aristotle  himself 
by  no  means  intended  to  class  as  poetry  works  that 
imitated  in  prose,  for  this  was  not  the  custom  of 
Hellenic  art.  Prose  is  not  suited  to  imitative  or 
imaginative  subjects,  for  we  expect  themes  treated 
in  prose  to  be  actual  facts.*  "  Verse  does  not  dis- 
tinguish poetry,"  says  Castelvetro,  "  but  clothes  and 
adorns  it ;  and  it  is  as  improper  for  poetry  to  be 
written  in  prose,  or  history  in  verse,  as  it  is  for 
women  to  use  the  garments  of  men,  and  for  men  to 
wear  the  garments  of  women."  *  The  test  of  poetry 
therefore  is  not  the  metre  but  the  material.  This 
approximates  to  Aristotle's  own  view ;  since  while 
imitation  is  what  distinguishes  the  poetic  art,  Aris- 

1  Scaliger,  Poet.  i.  2.  *  Castelvetro,  Poetica,  p.  23  sq. 

2  Defense,  pp.  10,  11.  6  Ibid.  p.  190. 
8  De  Poeta,  p.  53  sq. 


II.]        THE  GENERAL  THEORY  OF  POETRY        45 

totle,  by  limiting  it  to  the  imitation  of  human  life, 
was,  after  all,  making  the  matter  the  test  of  poetry. 
Castelvetro,  however,  arrives  at  this  conclusion 
on  different  grounds.  Science  he  regards  as  not 
suitable  material  for  poetry,  and  accordingly  such 
writers  as  Lucretius  and  Fracastoro  are  not  poets. 
They  are  good  artists,  perhaps,  or  good  philosophers, 
but  not  poets ;  for  the  poet  does  not  attempt  to  dis- 
cover the  truth  of  nature,  but  to  imitate  the  deeds 
of  men,  and  to  bring  delight  to  his  audience  by 
means  of  this  imitation.  Moreover,  poetry,  as  will 
be  seen  later,  is  intended  to  give  delight  to  the 
populace,  the  untrained  multitude,  to  whom  the 
sciences  and  the  arts  are  dead  letters ;  ^  if  we  con- 
cede these  to  be  fit  themes  for  poetry,  then  poetry 
is  either  not  meant  to  delight,  or  not  meant  for  the 
ordinary  people,  but  is  intended  for  instruction  and 
for  those  only  who  are  versed  in  sciences  and  arts. 
Moreover,  comparing  poetry  with  history,  Castel- 
vetro finds  that  they  resemble  each  other  in  many 
points,  but  are  not  identical.  Poetry  follows,  as  it 
were,  in  the  footsteps  of  history,  but  differs  from  it 
in  that  history  deals  with  what  has  happened,  poetry 
with  what  is  probable ;  and  things  that  have  hap- 
pened, though  probable,  are  never  considered  in 
poetry  as  jHrobable,  but  always  as  things  that  have 
happened.  History,  accordingly,  does  not  regard 
verisimilitude  or  necessity,  but  only  truth ;  poetry 
must  take  care  to  establish  the  probability  of'  its 
subject  in  verisimilitude  and  necessity,  since  it 
cannot  regard  truth.  Castelvetro  in  common  with 
1  (7/.  T.  Tasso,  xi.  51. 


46  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

most  of  the  critics  of  the  Renaissance  seems  to  mis- 
conceive the  full  meaning  of  ideal  truth ;  for  to  the 
Renaissance  —  nay,  even  to  Shakespeare,  if  we  are 
to  consider  as  his  own  various  phrases  which  he  has 
put  into  the  mouths  of  his  dramatic  characters  — 
truth  was  regarded  as  coincident  with  fact;  and 
nothing  that  was  not  actual  fact,  however  subor- 
dinated to  the  laws  of  probability  and  necessity, 
was  ever  called  truth. 

It  is  in  keeping  with  this  conception  of  the  rela- 
tions between  history  and  poetry,  that  Castelvetro 
should  differ  not  only  from  Aristotle,  but  from  most 
of  the  critics  of  his  own  time,  in  asserting  that  the 
order  of  the  poetic  narrative  may  be  the  same  as 
that  of  historical  narrative.  "In  telling  a  story," 
he  says,  "  we  need  not  trouble  ourselves  whether  it 
has  beginning,  middle,  and  end,  but  only  whether 
it  is  fitted  to  its  true  purpose,  that  is,  to  delight  its 
auditors  by  the  narration  of  certain  circumstances 
which  could  possibly  happen  but  have  not  actually 
happened."^  Here  the  only  vital  distinction  be- 
tween history  and  poetry  is  that  the  incidents  re- 
counted in  history  have  once  happened,  while  those 
recounted  in  poetry  have  never  actually  happened, 
or  the  matter  will  not  be  regarded  as  poetry.  Aris- 
totle's fundamental  requirement  of  the  -unity  of  the 
fable  is  regarded  as  unessential,  and  is  simply  ob- 
served in  order  to  show  the  poet's  ingenuity.  This 
notion  of  poetic  ingenuity  is  constant  throughout 
Castelvetro's  commentary.  Thus  he  explains  Aris- 
totle's statement  that  poetry  is  more  philosophic 
1  Poetica,  p.  158. 


II.]    THE  GENEKAL  THEORY  OF  POETRY    47 

than  history  —  more  philosophic,  according  to  Cas- 
telvetro,  in  the  sense  of  requiring  more  thought, 
more  speculation  in  its  composition  —  by  showing 
that  it  is  a  more  difficult  and  more  ingenious  labor 
to  invent  things  that  could  possibly  happen,  than 
merely  to  repeat  things  that  have  actually  hap- 
pened.^ 

III.    The  Function  of  Poetry 

According  to  Strabo,  it  will  be  remembered,  the 
object  or  function  of  poetry  is  pleasurable  instruc- 
tion in  reference  to  character,  emotion,  action. 
This  occasions  the  inquiry  as  to  what  is  the  func- 
tion of  the  poetic  art,  and,  furthermore,  what  are 
its  relations  to  morality.  The  starting-point  of  all 
discussions  on  this  subject  in  the  Kenaissance  was 
the  famous  verse  of  Horace :  — 

"  Aut  prodesse  volunt  aut  delectare  poetae."  ^ 

This  line  suggests  that  the  function  of  poetry  may 
be  to  please,  or  to  instruct,  or  both  to  please  and 
instruct ;  and  every  one  of  the  writers  of  the  Re- 
naissance takes  one  or  other  of  these  three  posi- 
tions. Aristotle,  as  we  know,  regarded  poetry  as 
an  imitation  of  human  life,  for  the  purpose  of  giv- 
ing a  certain  refined  pleasure  to  the  reader  or 
hearer.  "  The  end  of  the  fine  arts  is  to  give  pleas- 
ure (Trpos  rj^ovTqv),  or  rational  enjoyment  {■n-po'; 
Staywyi^V)."  ^  It  has  already  been  said  that  poetry, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  an  imitation  of  human  life,  and 

1  Poetjca,  p.  191.        ^  Ars  Poet.  Z'SA.        3  Butcher,  p.  185. 


48  LITERARY   CRITICISM  IN  ITALY       [chap. 

attempts  to  be  true  to  human  life  in  its  ideal  as- 
pects, must  fundamentally  be  moral ;  but  to  give 
moral  or  scientific  instruction  is  in  no  way  the  end 
or  function  of  poetry.  It  will  be  seen  that  the 
Renaissance  was  in  closer  accord  with  Horace  than 
with  Aristotle,  in  requiring  for  the  most  part  the 
utile  as  well  as  the  dulce  in  poetry. 

For  Daniello,  one  of  the  earliest  critical  writers 
of  the  century,  the  function  of  the  poet  is  to  teach 
and  delight.  As  the  aim  of  the  orator  is  to  per- 
suade, and  the  aim  of  the  physician  to  cure,  so  the 
aim  of  the  poet  is  equally  to  teach  and  delight; 
and  unless  he  teaches  and  delights  he  cannot  be 
called  a  poet,  even  as  one  who  does  not  persuade 
cannot  be  called  an  orator,  or  one  who  does  not 
cure,  a  physician.^  But  beyond  profitableness  and 
beauty,  the  poet  must  carry  with  him  a  certain 
persuasion,  which  is  one  of  the  highest  functions 
of  poetry,  and  which  consists  in  moving  and  af- 
fecting the  reader  or  hearer  with  the  very  passions 
depicted ;  but  the  poet  must  be  moved  first,  before 
he  can  move  others.^     Here  Daniello  is  renewing 

Horace's 

"  Si  vis  me  flere,  dolendum  est 
Primum  ipsi  tibi," — 

a  sentiment  echoed  by  poets  as  different  as  Vau- 
quelin,  Boileau,  and  Lamartine. 

Fracastoro,  however,  attempts  a  deeper  analysis 
of  the  proper   function   of  the  poetic  art.     What 
is  the  aim  of  the  poet  ?     Not  merely  to  give  de- 
light, for   the   fields,  the   stars,  men   and  women, 
1  Daniello,  p.  23.  2  77,^,7.  p.  40. 


II.]         THE   GENERAL   THEORY   OF  POETRY         49 

the  objects  of  poetic  imitation  themselves  do  that; 
and  poetry,  if  it  did  no  more,  could  not  be  said  to 
have  any  reason  for  existing.  Nor  is  it  merely  to 
teach  and  delight,  as  Horace  says ;  for  the  descrip- 
tions of  countries,  peoples,  and  armies,  the  scientific 
digressions  and  the  historical  ev6nts,  which  consti- 
tute the  instructive  side  of  poetry,  are  derived  from 
cosmographers,  scientists,  and  historians,  who  teach 
and  delight  as  much  as  poets  do.  What,  then,  is 
the  function  of  the  poet  ?  It  is,  as  has  already 
been  pointed  out,  to  describe  the  essential  beauty 
of  things,  to  aim  at  the  universal  and  ideal,  and 
to  perform  this  function  with  every  possible  ac- 
companiment of  beautiful  speech,  thus  affecting 
the  minds  of  men  in  the  direction  of  excellence 
and  beauty.  Portions  of  Fracastoro's  argument 
have  been  alluded  to  before,  and  it  will  suffice 
here  to  state  his  own  summing  up  of  the  aim  of 
the  poet,  which  is  this,  "  Delectare  et  prodesse 
imitando  in  unoquoque  maxima  et  pulcherrima  per 
genus  dicendi  simpliciter  pulchrum  ex  convenien- 
tibus."  ^  This  is  a  mingling  of  the  Horatian  and 
Platonic  conceptions  of  poetic  art. 

By  other  critics  a  more  practical  function  was 
given  to  poetry.  Giraldi  Cintio  asserts  that  it  is 
the  poet's  aim  to  condemn  vice  and  to  praise  vir- 
tue, and  Maggi  says  that  poets  aim  almost  ex- 
clusively at  benefiting  the  mind.  Poets  who,  on 
the  contrary,  treat  of  obscene  matters  for  the  cor- 
ruption of  youth,  may  be  compared  with  infamous 
physicians  who  give  their  patients  deadly  poison 
1  Fracastoro,  i.  363. 


50  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

in  the  guise  of  wholesome  medicine.  Horace  and 
Aristotle,  according  to  Maggi,  are  at  one  on  this 
point,  for  in  the  definition  of  tragedy  Aristotle 
ascribes  to  it  a  distinctly  useful  purpose,  and  what- 
ever delight  is  obtainable  is  to  be  regarded  as  a 
result  of  this  moral  function;  for  Maggi  and  the 
Renaissance  critics  in  general  would  follow  the 
Elizabethan  poet  who  speaks  of  "  delight,  the  fruit 
of  virtue  dearly  loved."  Muzio,  in  his  versified  Arte 
Poetica  (1555),  regards  the  end  of  poetry  as  pleasure 
and  profit,  and  the  pleasurable  aim  of  poetry  as 
attained  by  variety,  for  the  greatest  poems  contain 
every  phase  of  life  and  art. 

It  has  been  seen  that  Varchi  classed  poetry  with 
rational  philosophy.  The  end  of  all  arts  and  sci- 
ences is  to  make  human  life  perfect  and  happy; 
but  they  differ  in  their  modes  of  producing  this 
result.  Philosophy  attains  its  end  by  teaching; 
rhetoric,  by  persuasion  ;  history,  by  narration ;  poe- 
try, by  imitation  or  representation.  The  aim  of 
the  poet,  therefore,  is  to  make  the  human  soul  per- 
fect and  happy,  and  it  is  his  office  to  imitate,  that 
is,  to  invent  and  represent,  things  which  render 
men  virtuous,  and  consequently  happy.  Poetry 
attains  this  end  more  perfectly  than  any  of  the 
other  arts  or  sciences,  because  it  does  so,  not  by 
means  of  precept,  but  by  means  of  example.  There 
are  various  ways  of  making  men  virtuous,  —  by 
teaching  them  what  vice  is  and  what  virtue  is, 
which  is  the  province  of  ethics;  by  actually  chas- 
tising vices  and  rewarding  virtues,  which  is  the 
province  of  law;   or  by  example,  that   is,  by  the 


II.]        THE   GENERAL  THEORY   OF   POETRY         51 

representation  of  virtuous  men  receiving  suitable 
rewards  for  their  virtue,  and  of  vicious  men  receiv- 
ing suitable  punishments,  which  is  the  province  of 
poetry.  This  last  method  is  the  most  efficacious, 
because  it  is  accompanied  by  delight.  For  men 
either  can  not  or  will  not  take  the  trouble  to  study 
sciences  and  virtues  —  nay,  do  not  even  like  to  be 
told  what  they  should  or  should  not  do ;  but  in  hear- 
ing or  reading  poetic  examples,  not  only  is  there  no 
trouble,  but  there  is  the  greatest  delight,  and  no 
one  can  help  being  moved  by  the  representation  of 
characters  who  are  rewarded  or  punished  according 
to  an  ideal  justice. 

For  Varchi,  then,  as  for  Sir  Philip  Sidney  later, 
the  high  importance  of  poetry  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  it  teaches  morality  better  than  any  other 
art,  and  the  reason  is  that  its  instrument  is  not 
precept  but  example,  which  is  the  most  delightful 
and  hence  the  most  efficacious  of  all  means.  The 
function  of  poetry  is,  therefore,  a  moral  one,  and  it 
consists  in  removing  the  vices  of  men  and  incit- 
ing them  to  virtue.  This  twofold  moral  object  of 
poetry  —  the  removal  of  vices,  which  is  passive, 
and  the  incitement  to  virtue,  which  is  active  —  is 
admirably  attained,  for  example,  by  Dante  in  his 
Divina  Commedia;  for  in  the  Inferno  evil  men  are 
so  fearfully  punished  that  we  resolve  to  flee  from 
every  form  of  vice,  and  in  the  Paradiso  virtuous 
men  are  so  gloriously  rewarded  that  we  resolve  to 
imitate  every  one  of  their  perfections.  This  is  the 
expression  of  the  extreme  view  of  poetic  justice; 
and  while  it  is  in  keeping  with  the  common  senti- 


52  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY      [chap. 

ment  of  the  Renaissance,  it  is  of  course  entirely 
un-Aristotelian. 

Scaliger's  point  of  view  is  in  accord  with  the 
common  Renaissance  tradition.  Poetry  is  imitation, 
but  imitation 'is  not  the  end  of  poetry.  Imitation 
for  its  own  sake  —  that  is,  art  for  art's  sake  —  re- 
ceives no  encouragement  from  Scaliger.  The  pur- 
pose of  poetry  is  to  teach  delightfully  (docere  cum 
delectatione) ;  and,  therefore,  not  imitation,  as.  Aris- 
totle says,  but  delightful  instruction,  is  the  test  of 
poetry.^  Minturno  (1559)  adds  a  third  element  to 
that  of  instruction  and  of  delight.^  The  function 
of  poetry  is  not  only  to  teach  and  delight,  but  also 
to  move,  that  is,  beyond  instruction  and  delight 
the  poet  must  impel  certain  passions  in  the  reader 
or  hearer,  and  incite  the  mind  to  admiration  of 
what  is  described.^  An  ideal  hero  may  be  repre- 
sented in  a  poem,  but  the  poem  is  futile  imless  it 
excites  the  reader  to  admiration  of  the  hero  de- 
picted. Accordingly,  it  is  the  peculiar  office  of  the 
poet  to  move  admiration  for  great  men;  for  the 
orator,  the  philosopher,  and  the  historian  need  not 
necessarily  do  so,  but  no  one  who  does  not  incite 
this  admiration  can  really  be  called  a  poet.    . 

This  new  element  of  admiration  is  the  logical 
consequence  of  the  Renaissance  position  that  phi- 
losophy teaches  by  precept,  but  poetry  by  example, 
and  that  in  this  consists  its  superior  ethical  efficacy. 
In  Seneca's  phrase,  "longum  iter  per  praecepta, 

1  Scaliger,  Poet.  vi.  ii.  2. 

2  Be  Poeta,  p.  102.    Cf.  Scaliger,  Poet.  iii.  96. 
8  De  Poeta,  p.  11. 


11.]   THE  GENERAL  THEORY  OF  POETRY    53 

breve  per  exempla."  If  poetry,  therefore,  attains 
its  end  by  means  of  example,  it  follows  that  to 
arrive  at  this  end  the  poet  must  incite  in  the 
reader  an  admiration  of  the  example,  or  the  ethical 
aim  of  poetry  will  not  be  accomplished.  Poetry 
is  more  than  a  mere  passive  expression  of  truth 
in  the  most  pleasurable  manner;  it  becomes  like 
oratory  an  active  exhortation  to  virtue,  by  attempt- 
ing to  create  in  the  reader's  mind  a  strong  desire  to 
be  like  the  heroes  he  is  reading  about.  The  poet 
does  not  tell  what  vices  are  to  be  avoided  and  what 
virtues  are  to  be  imitated,  but  sets  before  the 
reader  or  hearer  the  most  perfect  types  of  the 
various  virtues  and  vices.  It  is,  in  Sidney's  phrase 
(a  phrase  apparently  borrowed  from  Minturno), 
"that  feigning  notable  images  of  virtues,  vices,  or 
what  else,  with  that  delightful  instruction,  which 
must  be  the  right  describing  note  to  know  a  poet 
by."  Dryden,  a  century  laler,  seems  to  be  insisting 
upon  this  same  principle  of  admiration  when  he 
says  that  it  is  the  work  of  the  poet  "  to  affect  the 
soul,  and  excite  the  passions,  and  above  all  to  move 
admiration,  which  is  the  delight  of  serious  plays."  ^ 
But  Minturno  goes  even  further  than  this.  If 
the  poet  is  fundamentally  a  teacher  of  virtue,  it 
follows  that  he  must  be  a  virtuous  man  himself; 
and  in  pointing  this  out,  Minturno  has  given  the 
first  complete  expression  in  modern  times  of  the 
consecrated  conception  of  the  poet's  of&ce.  As  no 
form  of  knowledge  and  no  moral  excellence  is  for- 
eign to  the  poet,  so  at  bottom  he  is  the  truly  wise 
1  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy,  p.  104. 


54  LITERARY   CRITICISM  IN  ITALY      [chap. 

and  good  man.  The  poet  may,  in  fact,  be  defined 
as  a  good  man  skilled  in  language  and  imitation ; 
not  only  ought  he  to  be  a  good  man,  but  no  one  will 
be  a  good  poet  unless  he  is  so.^  This  conception  of 
the  moral  nature  of  the  poet  may  be  traced  hence- 
forth throughout  modern  times.  It  is  to  be  found 
in  Ronsard  ^  and  other  French  and  Italian  writers  ; 
it  is  especially  noticeable  in  English  literature,  and 
is  insisted  on  by  Ben  Jonson,^  Milton,*  Shaftesbury,* 
Coleridge,®  and  Shelley.'  In  this  idea  Plato's  praise 
of  the  philosopher,  as  well  as  Cicero's  and  Quintil- 
ian's  praise  of  the  orator,  was  by  the  Renaissance 
transferred  to  the  poet ;  ^  but  the  conception  itself 
goes  back  to  a  passage  in  Strabo's  Geography,  a  work 
well  known  to  sixteenth-century  scholars.  This 
passage  is  as  follows :  — 

"  Can  we  possibly  imagine  that  the  genius,  power,  and 
excellence  of  a  real  poet  consist  in  aught  else  than  the  just 
imitation  of  life  in  formed  discourse  and  numbers  ?  But 
how  should  he  be  that  just  imitator  of  life,  whilst  he  himself 
knows  not  its  measures,  nor  how  to  guide  himself  by  judg- 
ment and  understanding  ?  For  we  have  not  surely  the  same 
notion  of  the  poet's  excellence  as  of  the  ordinary  crafts- 
man's, the  subject  of  whose  art  is  senseless  stone  or  timber, 

1  De  Poeta,  p.  79. 

2  CEiivres,  vii.  318. 
8  Works,  i.  333. 

*  Prose  Works,  iii.  118. 

6  Character isticks,  1711,  i.  207. 

«  H.  C.  Robinson,  Diary,  May  29,  1812,  "  Coleridge  talked  of 
the  impossibility  of  being  a  good  poet  without  being  a  good 
man." 

7  Defence  of  Poetry,  p.  42. 

8  Miuturno  plainly  says  as  much,  De  Poeta,  p.  105. 


II.]    THE  GENERAL  THEORY  OF  POETRY    55 

without  life,  dignity,  or  beauty  ;  whilst  the  poet's  art  turn- 
ing principally  on  men  and  manners,  he  has  his  virtues  and 
excellence  as  poet  naturally  annexed  to  human  excellence, 
and  to  the  worth  and  dignity  of  man,  insomuch  that  it  is 
impossible  he  should  be  a  great  and  worthy  poet  who  is  not 
first  a  worthy  and  good  man."  i 

Another  writer  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Bernardo 
Tasso,  tells  us  that  in  his  poem  of  the  Amadigi  he 
has  aimed  at  delight  rather  than  profitable  instruc- 
tion.^ "  I  have  spent  most  of  my  efforts,"  he  says, 
"in  attempting  to  please,  as  it  seems  to  me  that 
this  is  more  necessary,  and  also  more  difficult  to 
attain ;  for  we  find  by  experience  that  many  poets 
may  instruct  and  benefit  us  very  much,  but  cer- 
tainly give  us  very  little  delight."  This  agrees 
with  what  one  of  the  sanest  of  English  critics,  John 
Dryden  (1668),  has  said  of  verse,  "I  am  satisfied 
if  it  caused  delight,  for  delight  is  the  chief  if  not 
the  only  end  of  poesie ;  instruction  can  be  admitted 
but  in  the  second  place,  for  poesie  only  instructs  as 
it  delights."  ^ 

It  is  this  same  end  which  Castelvetro  (1570) 
ascribes  to  poetic  art.  For  Castelvetro,  as  in  a 
lesser  degree  for  Eobortelli  also,  the  end  of  poetry 
is  delight,  and  delight  alone.*  This,  he  asserts,  is 
the  position  of  Aristotle,  and  if  utility  is  to  be  con- 
ceded to  poetry  at  all,  it  is  merely  as  an  accident, 
as  in  the  tragic  purgation  of  terror  and  compassion.* 

1  Geog.  i.  ii.  5,  as  cited  by  Shaftesbury. 

2  Lettere,  ii.  195. 

3  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy,  p.  lOi. 
*  Of.  Plccolomini,  p.  369. 

5  Castelvetro,  Poetica,  p.  505.     Cf.  Twining,  ii.  449,  450. 


56  LITERAEY   CRITICISM  IN  ITALY      [chap. 

But  he  goes  further  than  Aristotle  would  have  been 
willing  to  go ;  for  poetry,  according  to  Castelvetro, 
is  intended  not  merely  to  please,  but  to  please  the 
populace,  in  fact  everybody,  even  the  vulgar  mob.^ 
On  this  he  insists  throughout  his  commentary ; 
indeed,  as  will  be  seen  later,  it  is  on  this  conception 
that  his  theory  of  the  drama  is  primarily  based. 
But  it  may  be  confidently  asserted  that  Aristotle 
would  have  willingly  echoed  the  conclusion  of 
Shakespeare,  as  expressed  in  Hamlet,  that  the  cen- 
sure of  one  of  the  judicious  must  o'erweigh  a  whole 
theatre  of  others.  At  the  same  time,  Castelvetro's 
conception  is  in  keeping  with  a  certain  modern  feel- 
ing in  regard  to  the  meaning  of  poetic  art.  Thus 
a  recent  writer  regards  literature  as  aiming  "at 
the  pleasure  of  the  greatest  possible  number  of  the 
nation  rather  than  instruction  and  practical  effects," 
and  as  applying  "■  to  general  rather  than  specialized 
knowledge."  ^  There  is,  then,  in  Castelvetro's  argu- 
ment this  modicum  of  truth,  that  poetry  appeals  to 
no  specialized  knowledge,  but  that  its  function  is, 
as  Coleridge  says,  to  give  a  definite  and  immediate 
pleasure. 

Torquato  Tasso,  as  might  be  expected,  regards 
poetry  in  a  more  highly  ideal  sense.  His  concep- 
tion of  the  function  of  poets  and  of  the  poetic  art 
may  be  explained  as  follows :  The  universe  is  beauti- 
ful in  itself,  because  beauty  is  a  ray  from  the  Divine 
splendor;  and  hence  art  should  seek  to  approach 
as  closely  as  possible  to  nature,  and  to  catch  and 

1  Poetica,  p.  29. 

2  Posnett,  cited  by  Cook,  p.  247. 


II.]    THE  GENERAL  THEORY  OF  POETRY    57 

express  this  natural  beauty  of  tlie  world.^  Real 
beauty,  however,  is  not  so  called  because  of  any 
usefulness  it  may  possess,  but  is  primarily  beautiful 
in  itself;  for  the  beautiful  is  what  pleases  every 
one,  just  as  the  good  is  what  every  one  desires.^ 
Beauty  is  therefore  the  flower  of  the  good  (qtiasi  un 
fiore  del  huono) ;  it  is  the  circumference  of  the 
circle  of  which  the  good  is  the  centre,  and  accord- 
ingly, poetry,  as  an  expression  of  this  beauty,  imi- 
tates the  outward  show  of  life  in  its  general 
aspects.  Poetry  is  therefore  an  imitation  of  human 
actions,  made  for  the  guidance  of  life ;  and  its  end 
is  delight,  ordinato  al  giovamento?  It  must  essen- 
tially delight,  either  because  delight  is  its  aim,  or 
because  delight  is  the  necessary  means  of  effecting 
the  ethical  end  of  art.*  Thus,  for  example,  heroic 
poetry  consists  of  imitation  and  allegory,  the  func- 
tion of  the  former  being  to  cause  delight,  and  that 
of  the  latter  to  give  instruction  and  guidance  in 
life.  But  since  difficult  or  obscure  conceits  rarely 
delight,  and  since  the  poet  does  not  appeal  to  the 
learned  only,  but  to  the  people,  just  as  the  orator 
does,  the  poet's  idea  must  be,  if  not  popular  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  at  least  intelligible  to 
the  people.  Now  the  people  will  not  study  difficult 
problems ;  but  poetry,  by  appealing  to  them  on  the 
side  of  pleasure,  teaches  them  whether  they  will  or 
no ;  and  this  constitutes  the  true  effectiveness  of 
poetry,  for  it  is  the  most  delightful,  and  hence  the 
most  valuable,  of  teachers.^ 

1  Opere,  viii.  26  sq.  8  ibid.  xii.  13.  6  md.  xii.  212. 

a  Ibid.  ix.  123.  *  Ibid.  xi.  50. 


68  LITEKARY   CRITICISM   IN  ITALY       [chap. 

Such,  then,  are  the  various  conceptions  of  the 
function  of  poetry,  as  held  by  the  critics  of  the 
Renaissance.  On  the  whole,  it  may  be  said  that  at 
bottom  the  conception  was  an  ethical  one,  for,  with 
the  exception  of  such  a  revolutionary  spirit  as 
Castelvetro,  by  most  theorists  it  was  as  an  effective 
guide  to  life  that  poetry  was  chiefly  valued.  Even 
when  delight  was  admitted  as  an  end,  it  was  simply 
because  of  its  usefulness  in  effecting  the  ethical 
aim. 

In  concluding  this  chapter,  it  may  be  well  to 
say  a  few  words,  and  only  a  few,  upon  the  classi- 
fication of  poetic  forms.  There  were  during  the 
Kenaissance  numerous  attempts  at  distinguishing 
these  forms,  but  on  the  whole  all  of  them  are  fun- 
damentally equivalent  to  that  of  Minturno,  who 
recognizes  three  genres,  —  the  lyric  or  melic,  the 
dramatic  or  scenic,  and  the  epic  or  narrative. 
This  classification  is  essentially  that  of  the  Greeks, 
and  it  has  lasted  down  to  this  very  day.  With 
lyric  poetry  this  essay  is  scarcely  concerned,  for 
during  the  Renaissance  there  was  no  systematic 
lyric  theory.  Those  who  discussed  it  at  all  gave 
most  of  their  attention  to  its  formal  structure,  its 
style,  and  especially  the  conceit  it  contained.  The 
model  of  all  lyrical  poetry  was  Petrarch,  and  it  was 
in  accordance  with  the  lyrical  poet's  agreement  or 
disagreement  with  the  Petrarchan  method  that  he 
was  regarded  as  a  success  or  a  failure.  Muzio's 
critical  poem  (1551)  deals  almost  entirely  with 
lyrical  verse,  and  there  are  discussions  on  this  sub- 
ject in  the  works  of  Trissino,  Equieoki,  Ruscelli, 


II.]         THE   GENERAL   THEORY   OF   POETRY         59 

Scaliger,  and  Minturno.  But  the  real  question  at 
issue  in  all  these  discussions  is  merely  that  of 
external  form,  and  it  is  with  the  question  of  prin- 
ciples, in  so  far  as  they  regard  literary  criticism, 
that  this  essay  is  primarily  concerned.  The  theory 
of  dramatic  and  epic  poetry,  being  fundamental, 
will  therefore  receive  almost  exclusive  attention. 


CHAPTEE  III 

THE   THEORY    OF    THE    DRAMA 

Aristotle's  definition  of  tragedy  is  the  basis  of 
the  Eenaissance  theory  of  tragedy.  That  definition 
is  as  follows :  "  Tragedy  is  an  imitation  of  an  ac- 
tion that  is  serious,  complete,  and  of  a  certain  mag- 
nitude ;  in  language  embellished  with  each  kind  of 
artistic  ornament,  the  several  kinds  being  found  in 
separate  parts  of  the  play  ;  in  the  form  of  action, 
not  of  narration ;  through  pity  and  fear  effecting  the 
proper  katkarsis  or  purgation  of  these  emotions."^ 

To  expand  this  definition,  tragedy,  in  common 
with  all  other  forms  of  poetry,  is  the  imitation  of 
an  action  ;  but  the  action  of  tragedy  is  distinguished 
from  that  of  comedy  in  being  grave  and  serious. 
The  action  is  complete,  in  so  far  as  it  possesses  per- 
fect unity ;  and  in  length  it  must  be  of  the  proper 
magnitude.  By  embellished  language,  Aristotle 
means  language  into  which  rhythm,  harmony,  and 
song  enter  5  and  by  the  remark  that  the  several 
kinds  are  to  be  found  in  separate  parts  of  the  play, 
he  means  that  some  parts  of  tragedy  are  rendered 
through  the  medium  of  verse  alone,  while  others 
receive  the  aid  of  song.     Moreover,  tragedy  is  dis- 

1  Poet.  vi.  2. 
60 


CHAP.  III.]     THE   THEORY   OF  THE   DRAMA  61 

tinguished  from  epic  poetry  by  being  in  the  form 
of  action  instead  of  that  of  narration.  The  last  por- 
tion of  Aristotle's  definition  describes  the  peculiar 
function  of  tragic  performance. 

I.    The  Subject  of  Tragedy 

Tragedy  is  the  imitation  of  a  serious  action,  that 
is,  an  action  both  grave  and  great,  or,  as  the  six- 
teenth century  translated  the  word,  illustrious. 
Now,  Avhat  constitutes  a  serious  action,  and  what 
actions  are  not  suited  to  the  dignified  character  of 
tragedy  ?  Daniello  (1536)  distinguishes  tragedy 
from  comedy  in  that  the  comic  poets  "  deal  with  the 
most  familiar  and  domestic,  not  to  say  base  and 
vile  operations ;  the  tragic  poets,  with  the  deaths 
of  high  kings  and  the  ruins  of  great  empires."  ^ 
Whichever  of  these  matters  the  poet  selects  should 
be  treated  without  admixture  of  any  other  form ;  if 
he  resolves  to  treat  of  grave  matters,  mere  loveli- 
ness should  be  excluded ;  if  of  themes  of  loveliness, 
he  should  exclude  all  grave  themes.  Here,  at  the 
very  beginning  of  dramatic  discussion,  the  strict 
separation  of  themes  or  genres  is  advocated  in  as 
formal  a  manner  as  ever  during  the  period  of  clas- 
sicism ;  and  this  was  never  deviated  from,  at  least 
in  theory,  by  any  of  the  writers  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Moreover,  according  to  Daniello,  the  dig- 
nified character  of  tragedy  demands  that  all  un- 
seemly, cruel,  impossible,  or  ignoble  incidents  should 
be  excluded  from  the  stage ;    while  even  comedy 

1  Daniello,  p.  34. 


62  I.ITERARY   CRITICISM  IN  ITALY       [chap. 

should  not  attempt  to  represent  any  lascivious  act.^ 
This  was  merely  a  deduction  from  Senecan  tragedy 
and  the  general  practice  of  the  classics. 

There  is,  in  Daniello's  theory  of  tragedy,  no  sin- 
gle Aristotelian  element,  and  it  was  not  until  about 
a  decade  later  that  Aristotle's  theory  of  tragedy 
played  any  considerable  part  in  the  literary  criti- 
cism of  the  sixteenth  century.  In  1543,  however, 
the  Poetics  had  already  become  a  part  of  university 
study,  for  Giraldi  Cintio,  in  his  Discorso  sulle  Com- 
edie  e  sulle  Tragedie,  written  in  that  year,  says  that 
it  was  a  regular  academic  exercise  to  compare  some 
Greek  tragedy,  such  as  the  CEdipus  of  Sophocles, 
with  a  tragedy  of  Seneca  on  the  same  subject,  using 
the  Poetics  of  Aristotle  as  a  dramatic  text-book.^ 
Giraldi  distinguishes  tragedy  from  comedy  on  some- 
what the  same  grounds  as  Daniello.  *'  Tragedy  and 
comedy,"  he  says,  "  agree  in  that  they  are  both  imi- 
tations of  an  action,  but  they  differ  in  that  the 
former  imitates  the  illustrious  and  royal,  the  latter 
the  popular  and  civil.  Hence  Aristotle  says  that 
comedy  imitates  the  worse  sort  of  actions,  not  that 
they  are  vicious  and  criminal,  but  that,  as  regards 
nobility,  they  are  worse  when  compared  with  royal 
actions."  Giraldi's  position  is  made  clear  by  his 
further  statement  that  the  actions  of  tragedy  are 
called  illustrious,  not  because  they  are  virtuous  or 
vicious,  but  merely  because  they  are  the  actions 
of  people  of  the  highest  rank.^ 

This  conception  of  the  serious  action  of  tragedy, 

1  Cf.  Horace,  Ars  Poet.  182  sq.  a  Ibid.  ii.  30. 

a  Giraldi  Cintio,  ii.  6. 


III.]  THE   THEORY   OE   THE   DRAMA  63 

which  makes  its  dignity  the  result  of  the  rank  of 
those  who  are  its  actors,  and  thus  regards  rank  as 
the  real  distinguishing  mark  between  comedy  and 
tragedy,'  was  not  only  common  throughout  the  Ke- 
naissance,  but  even  throughout  the  whole  period  of 
classicism,  and  had  an  extraordinary  effect  on  the 
modern  drama,  especially  in  France.  Thus  Dacier 
(1692)  says  that  it  is  not  necessary  that  the  action 
be  illustrious  and  important  in  itself  :  "  On  the  con- 
trary, it  may  be  very  ordinary  or  common ;  but  it 
must  be  so  by  the  quality  of  the  persons  who  act. 
.  .  .  The  greatness  of  these  eminent  men  renders 
the  action  great,  and  their  reputation  makes  it  cred- 
ible and  possible."  ^ 

Again,  Robortelli  (1548)  maintains  that  tragedy 
deals  only  with  the  greater  sort  of  men  (pnestanti- 
ores),  because  the  fall  of  men  of  such  rank  into 
misery  and  disgrace  produces  greater  commiseration 
(which  is,  as  will  be  seen,  one  of  the  functions  of 
tragedy)  than  the  fall  of  men  of  merely  ordinary 
rank.  Another  commentator  on  the  Poetics,  Maggi 
(1550),  gives  a  slightly  diiferent  explanation  of 
Aristotle's  meaning.  Maggi  asserts  that  Aristotle,^ 
in  saying  that  comedy  deals  with  the  worse  and 
tragedy  with  the  better  sort  of  men,  means  to  dis- 
tinguish between  those  whose  rank  is  lower  or 
higher  than  that  of  ordinary  men;  comedy  dealing 
with  slaves,  tradesmen,  maidservants,  buffoons,  and 
other  low  people,  tragedy  with  kings  and  heroes.^ 
This  explanation  is  defended  on  grounds  similar  to 

1  Cited  by  Butcher,  p.  220.  3  Maggi,  p.  64. 

2  Poet.  iv.  7. 


64  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

those  given  by  Robortelli,  that  is,  the  change  from 
felicity  to  infelicity  is  greater  and  more  noticeable 
in  the  greatest  men.j 

This  conception  of  the  rank  of  the  characters  as 
the  distinguishing  mark  between  tragedy  and  com- 
edy is,  it  need  not  be  said,  entirely  un- Aristotelian. 
"  Aristotle  does  undoubtedly  hold,"  says  Professor 
Butcher,  "  that  actors  in  tragedy  ought  to  be  illus- 
trious by  birth  and  position.  The  narrow  and  triv- 
ial life  of  obscure  persons  cannot  give  scope  for  a 
great  and  significant  action,  one  of  tragic  conse- 
quence. But  nowhere  does  he  make  outward  rank 
the  distinguishing  feature  of  tragic  as  opposed  to 
comic  representation.  Moral  nobility  is  what  he 
demands;  and  this  —  on  the  French  stage,  or  at 
least  with  French  critics  —  is  transformed  into  an 
inflated  dignity,  a  courtly  etiquette  and  decorum, 
which  seemed  proper  to  high  rank.  The  instance 
is  one  of  many  in  which  literary  critics  have  wholly 
confounded  the  teaching  of  Aristotle."  ^  This  dis- 
tinction, then,  though  common  up  to  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  is  not  to  be  found  in  Aristotle ; 
but  the  fact  is,  that  a  similar  distinction  can  be 
traced,  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  throughout 
classical  antiquity,  back  almost  to  the  time  of  Aris- 
totle himself. 

The  grammarian,  Diomedes,  has  preserved  the 
definition  of  tragedy  formulated  by  Theophrastus, 
Aristotle's  successor  as  head  of  the  Peripatetic 
school.     According   to   this   definition,   tragedy   is 

1  Maggi,  p.  154. 

»  Butcher,  p.  220  sq. 


III.]  THE   THEORY   OF   THE    DRAMA  65 

"  a  change  in  the  fortune  of  a  hero."  ^  A  Greek 
definition  of  comedy  preserved  by  Diomedes,  and 
ascribed  to  Theophrastus  also,^  speaks  of  comedy 
as  dealing  with  private  and  civil  fortunes,  without 
the  element  of  danger.  This  seems  to  have  been 
the  accepted  Roman  notion  of  comedy.  In  the 
treatise  of  Euanthius-Donatus,  comedy  is  said  to 
deal  with  the  common  fortunes  of  men,  to  begin 
turbulently,  but  to  end  tranquilly  and  happily  ; 
tragedy,  on  the  other  hand,  has  only  mighty  per- 
sonages, and  ends  terribly ;  its  subject  is  often  his- 
torical, while  that  of  comedy  is  always  invented  by 
the  poet.^  The  third  book  of  Diomedes's  Ars  Gram- 
matica,  based  on  Suetonius's  tractate  De  Poetis  (writ- 
ten in  the  second  century  a.d.),  distinguishes  tragedy 
from  comedy  in  that  only  heroes,  great  leaders,  and 
kings  are  introduced  in  tragedy,  while  in  comedy 
the  characters  are  humble  and  private  persons ;  in 
the  former,  lamentations,  exiles,  bloodshed  predom- 
inate, in  the  latter,  love  affairs  and  seductions.* 
Isidore  of  Seville,  in  the  seventh  century,  says  very 
much  the  same  thing :  "  Comic  poets  treat  of  the 
acts  of  private  men,  while  tragic  poets  treat  of 
public  matters  and  the  histories  of  kings;  tragic 
themes  are  based  on  sorrowful  affairs,  comic  themes 
on  joyful  ones."^  In  another  place  he  speaks  of 
tragedy  as  dealing  with  the  ancient  deeds  and  mis- 

1  Butcher,  p.  219,  n.  1.  —  Miiller,  ii.  394,  attempts  to  harmonize 
the  definition  of  Theophrastus  witli  that  of  Aristotle. 

2  Egger,  Hist,  de  la  Critique,  p.  344,  n.  2. 

3  Cloetta,  1.  29.    Cf,  Antiphanes,  cited  by  Egger,  p.  72. 
*  Cloetta,  p.  30. 

6  Etymol.  viii.  7,  6. 


66  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

deeds  of  infamous  kings,  and  of  comedy  as  dealing 
with  the  actions  of  private  men,  and  with  the  de- 
filement of  maidens  and  the  love  affairs  of  strum- 
pets.^ In  the  CathoUcon  of  Johannes  Januensis  de 
Balbis  (1286)  tragedy  and  comedy  are  distinguished 
on  similar  grounds :  tragedy  deals  only  with  kings 
and  princes,  comedy  with  private  citizens ;  the  style 
of  the  former  is  elevated,  that  of  the  latter  humble ; 
comedy  begins  sorrowfully  and  ends  joyfully,  trag- 
edy begins  joyfully  and  ends  miserably  and  terribly.^ 
For  Dante,  any  poem  written  in  an  elevated  and 
sublime  style,  beginning  happily  and  ending  in  mis- 
ery and  terror,  is  a  tragedy ;  his  own  great  vision, 
written  as  it  is  in  the  vernacular,  and  beginning  in 
hell  and  ending  gloriously  in  paradise,  he  calls  a 
comedy.^ 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  during  the  post-classic 
period  and  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  comedy 
and  tragedy  were  distinguished  on  any  or  all  of  the 
following  grounds :  — 

i.  The  characters  in  tragedy  are  kings,  princes, 
or  great  leaders  ;  those  in  comedy,  humble  persons 
and  private  citizens. 

ii.  Tragedy  deals  with  great  and  terrible  actions ; 
comedy  with  familiar  and  domestic  actions. 

iii.  Tragedy  begins  happily  and  ends  terribly; 
comedy  begins  rather  turbulently  and  ends  joy- 
fully. 

'     1  Etymol.  xviii.  45  and  46. . 
2  Cloetta,  p.  28,  and  p.  31  sq. 
8  Epist.  xi.  10.    Of.  Gelli's  Lectures  on  the  Divine  Comedy, 

ed.  Negroni,  1887,  i.  37  sq. 


in.]  THE   THEORY   OF   THE   DRAMA  67 

iv.  The  style  and  diction  of  tragedy  are  elevated 
and  sublime  ;  while  those  of  comedy  are  humble  and 
colloquial. 

V.  The  subjects  of  tragedy  are  generally  histori- 
cal ;  those  of  comedy  are  always  invented  by  the 
poet. 

vi.  Comedy  deals  largely  with  love  and  seduc- 
tion ;  tragedy  with  exile  and  bloodshed. 

This,  then,  was  the  tradition  that  shaped  the  un- 
Aristotelian  conception  of  the  distinctions  between 
comedy  and  tragedy,  which  persisted  throughout 
and  even  beyond  the  Renaissance.  Giraldi  Cintio 
has  followed  most  of  these  traditional  distinctions, 
but  he  is  in  closer  accord  with  Aristotle  ^  when  he 
asserts  that  the  tragic  as  well  as  the  comic  plot 
may  be  purely  imaginary  and  invented  by  the 
poet.^  He  explains  the  traditional  conception  that 
the  tragic  fable  should  be  historical,  on  the  ground 
that  as  tragedy  deals  with  the  deeds  of  kings  and 
illustrious  men,  it  would  not  be  probable  that  re- 
markable actions  of  such  great  personages  should 
be  left  unrecorded  in  history,  whereas  the  private 
events  treated  in  comedy  could  hardly  be  known 
to  all.  Giraldi,  however,  asserts  that  it  does  not 
matter  whether  the  tragic  poet  invents  his  story  or 
not,  so  long  as  it  follows  the  law  of  probability. 
The  poet  should  choose  an  action  that  is  probable 
and  dignified,  that  does  not  need  the  intervention 
of  a  god  in  the  unravelling  of  the  plot,  that  does  not 
occupy  much  more  than  the  space  of  a  day,  and 
that  can  be  represented  on  the  stage  in  three  or 
1  Poet.  ix.  5-9.  2  Giraldi  Ciutio,  ii.  14. 


68  LITEKARY  CRITICISM  IN   ITALY      [chap. 

four  hours.^  In  respect  to  the  denouement  of 
tragedy,  it  may  be  happy  or  unhappy,  but  in 
either  case  it  must  arouse  pity  and  terror ;  and  as 
for  the  classic  notion  that  no  deaths  should  be  rep- 
resented on  the  stage,  Giraldi  declares  that  those 
which  are  not  excessively  painful  may  be  repre- 
sented, for  they  are  represented  not  for  the  sake  of 
commiseration  but  of  justice.  The  argument  here 
centres  about  Aristotle's  phrase  iv  t<S  (f)avep(o  ddvuToi,^ 
but  the  common  practice  of  classicism  was  based  on 
Horace's  express  prohibition :  — 

"Ne  pueros  coram  populo  Medea  trucidet."  ^ 

Giraldi  gives  it  as  a  universal  rule  of  the  drama 
that  nothing  should  be  represented  on  the  stage 
which  could  not  with  propriety  be  done  in  one's 
own  house.* 

Scaliger's  treatment  of  the  dramatic  forms  is  par- 
ticularly interesting  because  of  its  great  influence 
on  the  neo-classical  drama.  He  defines  tragedy  as 
an  imitation  of  an  illustrious  event,  ending  unhap- 
pily, written  in  a  grave  and  weighty  style,  and 
in  verse.^  Here  he  has  discarded,  or  at  least 
disregarded,  the  Aristotelian  definition  of  tragedy, 
in  favor  of  the  traditional  conception  which  had 
come  down  through  the  Middle  Ages.  Real  trag- 
edy, according  to  Scaliger,  is  entirely  serious ;  and 
although  there  are  a  few  happy  endings  in  ancient 
tragedy,  the  unhappy  ending  is  most  proper  to  the 

1  Giraldi  Cintio,  ii.  20.  *  Giraldi  Cintio,  ii.  119. 

a  Poet.  xi.  6.  6  Scaliger,  Foet.  i.  6. 

«  Ars  Poet.  182-188. 


III.]  THE   THEORY  OF   THE   DRAMA  69 

spirit  of  tragedy  itself.  Mortes  aut  exilia  —  these 
are  the  fit  accompaniments  of  the  tragic  catas- 
trophe.^ The  action  begins  tranquilly,  but  ends 
horribly ;  the  characters  are  kings  and  princes,  from 
cities,  castles,  and  camps ;  the  language  is  grave, 
polished,  and  entirely  opposed  to  colloquial  speech ; 
the  aspect  of  things  is  troubled,  with  terrors,  men- 
aces, exiles,  and  deaths  on  every  hand.  Taking  as 
his  model  Seneca,  whom  he  rates  above  all  the 
Greeks  in  majesty,^  he  gives  as  the  typical  themes 
of  tragedy  "the  mandates  of  'kings,  slaughters,  de- 
spairs, executions,  exiles,  loss  of  parents,  parricides, 
incests,  conflagrations,  battles,  loss  of  sight,  tears, 
shrieks,  lamentations,  burials,  epitaphs,  and  funeral 
songs."  ^  Tragedy  is  further  distinguished  from 
comedy  on  the  ground  that  the  latter  derives  its 
argument  and  its  chief  characters  from  history,  in- 
venting merely  the  minor  characters ;  while  comedy 
invents  its  arguments  and  all  its  characters,  and 
gives  them  names  of  their  own.  Scaliger  distin- 
guishes men,  for  the  purposes  of  dramatic  poetry, 
according  to  character  and  rank ;  *  but  it  would  seem 
that  he  regarded  rank  alone  as  the  distinguishing 
mark  between  tragedy  and  comedy.  Thus  tragedy 
is  made  to  differ  from  comedy  in  three  things :  in 
the  rank  of  the  characters,  in  the  quality  of  the 
actions,  and  in  their  different  endings ;  and  as  a 
result  of  these  differences,  in  style  also. 

The  definition  of  tragedy  given  by  Minttirno,  in 
his  treatise  De  Poeta  (1559),  is  merely  a  paraphrase 

1  Scaliger,  i.  11 ;  iii.  96.        » Ibid.  iii.  96. 

2  Ibid.  vi.  6.  *  Ibid,  i,  IS. 


70  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

of  Aristotle's.  He  conceives  of  tragedy  as  describ- 
ing casus  heroiim  cuius  sibi  quisque  fortmice  fuerit 
faher,  and  it  thus  acts  as  a  warning  to  men  against 
pride  of  rank,  insolence,  avarice,  lust,  and  similar 
passions.^  It  is  grave  and  illustrious  because  its 
characters  are  illustrious ;  and  no  variety  of  persons 
or  events  should  be  introduced  that  are  not  in  keeping 
with  the  calamitous  ending.  The  language  through- 
out must  be  grave  and  severe ;  and  Minturno  has 
expressed  his  censure  in  such  matters  by  the  phrase, 
poema  amatorio  mollique  sermone  effoe7ninat,^  a  cen- 
sure which  would  doubtless  apply  to  a  large  por- 
tion of  classic  French  tragedy. 

In  Castelvetro  (1570)  we  find  a  far  more  com- 
plete theory  of  the  drama  than  had  been  attempted 
by  any  of  his  predecessors.  His  work  is  by  no 
means  a  model  of  what  a  commentary  on  Aristotle's 
Poetics  should  be.  In  the  next  century,  Dacier, 
whose  subservience  to  Aristotle  was  even  greater 
than  that  of  any  of  the  Italians,  accuses  Castel- 
vetro of  lacking  every  quality  necessary  to  a  good 
interpreter  of  Aristotle.  "  He  knew  nothing,"  says 
Dacier,  "of  the  theatre,  or  of  character,  or  of  the 
passions ;  he  understood  neither  the  reasons  nor 
the  method  of  Aristotle ;  and  he  sought  rather  to 
contradict  Aristotle  than  to  explain  him."^  The 
fact  is  that  Castelvetro,  despite  considerable  vener- 
ation for  Aristotle's  authority,  often  shows  remark- 

1  De  Poeta,  p.  43  sq. 

^ Ibid.  p.  173.  Cf.  Milton's  phrase,  "vain  and  amatorious 
poem." 

8  Dacier,  1692,  p.  xvii. 


III.]  THE   THEOKY   OF   THE   DRAMA  71 

able  independence  of  thought;  and  so  far  from 
resting  content,  in  his  commentary,  with  the  mere 
explanation  of  the  details  of  the  Poetics,  he  has 
attempted  to  deduce  from  it  a  more  or  less  com- 
plete theory  of  poetic  art.  Accordingly,  though 
diverging  from  many  of  the  details,  and  still  more 
from  the  spirit  of  the  Poetics,  he  has,  as  it  were, 
built  up  a  dramatic  system  of  his  own,  founded 
upon  certain  modifications  and  misconceptions  of 
the  Aristotelian  canons.  The  fundamental  idea 
of  this  system  is  quite  modern ;  and  it  is  especially 
interesting  because  it  indicates  that  by  this  time 
the  drama  had  become  more  than  a  mere  academic 
exercise,  and  was  actually  regarded  as  intended 
primarily  for  representation  on  the  stage.  Cas- 
telvetro  examines  the  physical  conditions  of  stage 
representation,  and  on  this  bases  the  requirements 
of  dramatic  literature.  The  fact  that  the  drama 
is  intended  for  the  stage,  that  it  is  to  be  acted,  is  at 
the  bottom  of  his  theory  of  tragedy,  and  it  was  to 
this  notion,  as  will  be  seen  later,  that  we  are  to 
attribute  the  origin  of  the  unities  of  time  and  place. 
But  Castelvetro's  method  brings  with  it  its  own 
reductio  ad  dbsurdum.  For  after  all,  stage  rep- 
resentation, while  essential  to  the  production  of 
dramatic  literature,  can  never  circumscribe  the 
poetic  power  or  establish  its  conditions.  The  con- 
ditions of  stage  representation  change,  and  must 
change,  with  the  varying  conditions  of  dramatic 
literature  and  the  inventive  faculty  of  poets,  for 
truly  great  art  makes,  or  at  least  fixes,  its  own  con- 
ditions.    Besides,  it  is  with  what  is  permanent  and 


72  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap.* 

universal  that  the  artist  —  the  dramatic  artist  as 
well  as  the  rest  —  is  concerned ;  and  it  is  the 
poetic,  and  not  the  dramaturgic,  element  that  is 
permanent  and  universal.  "  The  power  of  tragedy, 
we  may  be  sure,"  says  Aristotle,  '"is  felt  even  apart 
from  representation  and  actors ;"  ^  and  again :  "  The 
plot  [of  a  tragedy]  ought  to  be  so  constructed  that 
even  without  the  aid  of  the  eye  any  one  who  is 
told  the  incidents  will  thrill  with  horror  and  pity 
at  the  turn  of  events."  ^ 

But  what,  according  to  Castelvetro,  are  the  con- 
ditions of  stage  representation  ?  The  theatre  is  a 
public  place,  in  which  a  play  is  presented  before  a 
motley  crowd,  —  la  moltitudine  rozza,  —  upon  a  cir- 
cumscribed platform  or  stage,  within  a  limited 
space  of  time.  To  this  idea  the  whole  of  Castel- 
vetro's  dramatic  system  is  conformed.  In  the  first 
place,  since  the  audience  may  be  great  in  number, 
the  theatre  must  be  large,  and  yet  the  audience 
must  be  able  to  hear  the  play ;  accordingly,  verse  is 
added,  not  merely  as  a  delightful  accompaniment, 
but  also  in  order  that  the  actors  may  raise  their 
voices  without  inconvenience  and  without  loss  of 
dignity.^  In  the  second  place,  the  audience  is  not 
a  select  gathering  of  choice  spirits,  but  a  motley 
crowd  of  people,  drawn  to  the  theatre  for  the  pur- 
pose of  pleasure  or  recreation;  accordingly,  ab- 
struse themes,  and  in  fact  all  technical  discussions, 
must  be  eschewed  by  the  playwright,  who  is  thus 
limited,  as  we  should  say  to-day,  to  the  elemental 

1  Poet.  vi.  19.  2  Poet.  xiv.  1. 

*  Castelvetro,  Poetica,  p.  30. 


III.]  THE   THEORY   OF   THE   DRAMA  73 

passions  and  interests  of  man.^  In  the  third  place, 
the  actors  are  required  to  move  about  on  a  raised 
and  narrow  platform ;  and  this  is  the  reason  why- 
deaths  or  deeds  of  violence,  and  many  other  things 
which  cannot  be  acted  on  such  a  platform  with 
convenience  and  dignity,  should  not  be  represented 
in  the  drama.^  Furthermore,  as  will  be  seen  later, 
it  is  on  this  conception  of  the  circumscribed  plat- 
form and  the  physical  necessities  of  the  audience 
and  the  actors,  that  Castelvetro  bases  his  theory  of 
the  unities  of  time  and  place. 

In  distinguishing  the  different  genres,  Castelvetro 
openly  differs  with  Aristotle.  In  the  Poetics,  Aris- 
totle distinguishes  men  according  as  they  are  better 
than  we  are,  or  worse,  or  the  same  as  we  are ;  and 
from  this  difference  the  vai'ious  species  of  poetry, 
tragic,  comic,  and  epic,  are  derived.  Castelvetro 
thinks  this  mode  of  distinction  not  only  untrue,  but 
even  inconsistent  with  what  Aristotle  says  later  of 
tragedy.  Goodness  and  badness  are  to  be  taken 
account  of,  according  to  Castelvetro,  not  to  distin- 
guish one  form  of  poetry  from  another,  but  merely 
in  the  special  case  of  tragedy,  in  so  far  as  a  moder- 
ate virtue,  as  Aristotle  says,  is  best  able  to  produce 
terror  and  pity.  Poetry,  as  indeed  Aristotle  him- 
self acknowledges,  is  not  an  imitation  of  character, 
or  of  goodness  and  badness,  but  of  men  acting ;  and 
the  different  kinds  of  poetry  are  distinguished,  not 
by  the  goodness  and  badness,  or  the  character,  of 
the  persons  selected  for  imitation,  but  by  their  rank 
or  condition  alone.  The  great  and  all-pervading 
1  Castelvetro,  Poetica,  pp.  22,  23.  "  Ibid.  p.  57. 


74  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

difference  between  royal  and  private  persons  is 
what  distinguishes  tragedy  and  epic  poetry  on  the 
one  hand  from  comedy  and  similar  forms  of  poetry 
on  the  other.  It  is  rank,  then,  and  not  intellect, 
character,  action,  —  for  these  vary  in  men  according 
to  their  condition,  —  that  differentiates  one  poetic 
form  from  another;  and  the  distinguishing  mark 
of  rank  on  the  stage,  and  in  literature  generally,  is 
the  bearing  of  the  characters,  royal  persons  acting 
with  propriety,  and  meaner  persons  with  impro- 
priety.^ Castelvetro  has  here  escaped  one  pitfall, 
only  to  fall  into  another;  for  while  goodness  and 
badness  cannot,  from  any  aesthetic  standpoint,  be 
made  to  distinguish  the  characters  of  tragedy  from 
those  of  comedy, — leaving  out  of  consideration 
here  the  question  whether  this  was  or  was  not  the 
actual  opinion  of  Aristotle,  —  it  is  no  less  improper 
to  make  mere  outward  rank  or  condition  the  dis- 
tinguishing feature.  Whether  it  be  regarded  as  an 
interpretation  of  Aristotle  or  as  a  poetic  theory  by 
itself,  Castelvetro's  contention  is,  in  either  case, 
equally  untenable. 

II.    Tlie  Function  of  Tragedy 

No  passage  in  Aristotle's  Poetics  has  been  sub- 
jected to  more  discussion,  and  certainly  no  pas- 
sage has  been  more  misunderstood,  than  that  in 
which,  at  the  close  of  his  definition  of  tragedy,  he 
states  its  peculiar  function  to  be  tliat  of  effect- 
ing through  pity  and  fear  the  proper  purgation 
1  Castelvetro,  Poetica,  pp.  35,  36, 


III.]  THE   THEORY   OF   THE   DRAMA  75 

{Ka.6ap(n%)  of  these  emotions.  The  more  probable 
of  the  explanations  of  this  passage  are,  as  Twining 
says/  reducible  to  two.  The  first  of  these  gives  to 
Aristotle's  katharsis  an  ethical  meaning,  attributing 
the  effect  of  the  tragedy  to  its  moral  lesson  and 
example.  This  interpretation  was  a  literary  tra- 
dition of  centuries,  and  may  be  found  in  such 
diverse  writers  as  Corneille  and  Lessing,  Racine 
and  Dry  den,  Dacier  and  Kapin.  According  to  the 
second  interpretation,  the  purgation  of  the  emotions 
produced  by  tragedy  is  an  emotional  relief  gained 
by  the  excitement  of  these  emotions.  Plato  had 
insisted  that  the  drama  excites  passions,  such  as 
pity  and  fear,  which  debase  men's  spirits;  Aris- 
totle in  this  passage  answers  that  by  the  very 
exaltation  of  these  emotions  they  are  given  a  pleas- 
urable outlet,  and  beyond  this  there  is  effected  a 
purification  of  the  emotions  so  relieved.  That  is, 
the  emotions  are  clarified  and  purified  by  being 
passed  through  the  medium  of  art,  and  by  being,  as 
Professor  Butcher  points  out,  ennobled  by  objects 
worthy  of  an  ideal  emotion.^  This  explanation 
gives  no  direct  moral  purpose  or  influence  to  the 
katharsis,  for  tragedy  acts  on  the  feelings  and  not 
on  the  will.  While  the  ethical  conception,  of  course, 
predominates  in  Italian  criticism,  as  it  does  through- 
out Europe  up  to  the  very  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  a  number  of  Renaissance  critics,  among 
them  Minturno  and  Speroni,  even  if  they  failed  to 
elaborate  the  further  aesthetic  meaning  of  Aristotle's 
definition,  at  least  perceived  that  Aristotle  ascribed 
1  Twining,  ii.  3.  2  Butcher,  ch.  vi. 


76  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

to  tragedy  an  emotional  and  not  an  ethical  purpose. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  give  a  detailed  statement  of  the 
opinions  of  the  various  Italian  critics  on  this  point ; 
but  it  is  essential  that  the  interpretations  of  the 
more  important  writers  should  be  alluded  to,  since 
otherwise  the  Eenaissance  conception  of  the  func- 
tion of  the  drama  could  not  be  understood. 

Giraldi  Cintio  points  out  that  the  aim  of  comedy 
and  of  tragedy  is  identical,  viz.  to  conduce  to  vir- 
tue; but  they  reach  this  result  in  different  ways; 
for  comedy  attains  its  end  by  means  of  pleasure 
and  comic  jests,  while  tragedy,  whether  it  ends 
happily  or  unhappily,  purges  the  mind  of  vice 
through  the  medium  of  misery  and  terror,  and  thus 
attains  its  moral  end.^  Elsewhere,^  he  affirms  that 
the  tragic  poet  condemns  vicious  actions,  and  by 
combining  them  with  the  terrible  and  the  miserable 
makes  us  fear  and  hate  them.  In  other  words, 
men  who  are  bad  are  placed  in  such  pitiable  and 
terrible  positions  that  we  fear  to  imitate  their 
vices ;  and  it  is  not  a  purgation  of  pity  and  fear, 
as  Aristotle  says,  but  an  eradication  of  all  vice  and 
vicious  desire  that  is  effected  by  the  tragic  Jcatharsis. 
Trissino,  in  the  fifth  section  of  his  Poetica  (1563), 
cites  Aristotle's  definition  of  tragedy;  but  makes 
no  attempt  to  elucidate  the  doctrine  of  'katharsis. 
His  conception  of  the  function  of  the  drama  is 
much  the  same  as  Giraldi's.  It  is  the  office  of  the 
tragic  poet,  through  the  medium  of  imitation,  to 
praise  and  admire  the  good,  while  that  of  the  comic 
poet  is  to  mock  and  vituperate  the  bad ;  for  tragedy, 

1  Giraldi  Cintio,  ii.  12.  2  ij)i^_  i.  q,q  gq. 


III.]  THE   THEORY   OF   THE    DRAMA  77 

as   Aristotle   says,   deals   witli   tlie  better  sort  of 
actions,  aud  comedy  with  the  worse.^ 

Robortelli  (1548),  however,  ascribes  a  more  aes- 
thetic function  to  tragedy.  By  the  representation 
of  sad  and  atrocious  deeds,  tragedy  produces  terror 
and  commiseration  in  the  spectator's  mind.  The 
exercise  of  terror  and  commiseration  purges  the 
mind  of  these  very  passions;  for  the  spectator, 
seeing  things  performed  which  are  very  similar  to 
the  actual  facts  of  life,  becomes  accustomed  to 
sorrow  and  pity,  and  these  emotions  are  gradually 
diminished.^  Moreover,  by  seeing  the  sufferings  of 
others,  men  sorrow  less  at  their  o"\vn,  recognizing 
such  things  as  common  to  human  nature.  Robor- 
telli's  conception  of  the  function  of  tragedy  is, 
therefore,  not  an  ethical  one ;  the  effect  of  tragedy 
is  understood  primarily  as  diminishing  pity  and 
fear  in  our  minds  by  accustoming  us  to  the  sight  of 
deeds  that  produce  these  emotions.  A  similar  in- 
terpretation of  the  katharsis  is  given  by  Vettori 
(1560)  and  Castelvetro  (1570). «  The  latter  com- 
pares the  process  of  purgation  with  the  emotions 
which  are  excited  by  a  pestilence.  At  first  the  in- 
fected populace  is  crazed  by  excitement,  but  grad- 
ually becomes  accustomed  to  the  sight  of  the 
disease,  and  the  emotions  of  the  people  are  thus 
tempered  and  allayed. 

A  somewhat  different  conception  of  katharsis  is 
that  of  Maggi.     According  to  him,  we  are  to  under- 

1  Trissino,  ii.  93  sq. 

2  Robortelli,  p.  52  sq. 

3  Vettori,  p.  56  55.,  and  Castelvetro,  Poetica,  p.  117  sq. 


78  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap 

stand  by  purgation  the  liberation  through  pity  and 
fear  of  passions  similar  to  these,  but  not  pity  and 
fear  themselves ;  for  Maggi  cannot  understand  how 
tragedy,  which  induces  pity  and  fear  in  the  hearer, 
should  at  the  same  time  remove  these  perturba- 
tions.^ Moreover,  pity  and  fear  are  useful  emotions, 
while  such  passions  as  avarice,  lust,  anger,  are 
certainly  not.  In  another  place,  Maggi,  relying  on 
citations  from  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  Alexander  of 
Aphrodisias,  explains  the  pleasure  we  receive  from 
tragedy,  by  pointing  out  that  we  feel  sorrow  by 
reason  of  the  human  heart  within  us,  which  is 
carried  out  of  itself  by  the  sight  of  misery ;  while 
we  feel  pleasure  because  it  is  human  and  natural  to 
feel  pity.  Pleasure  and  pain  are  thus  fundamen- 
tally the  same.^  Varchi  ^  is  at  one  with  Maggi  in 
interpreting  the  katharsis  as  a  purgation,  not  of 
pity  and  fear  themselves,  but  of  emotions  similar 
to  them. 

For  Scaliger  (1561)  the  aim  of  tragedy,  like  that 
of  all  poetry,  is  a  purely  ethical  one.  It  is  not 
enough  to  move  the  spectators  to  admiration  and 
dismay,  as  some  critics  say  ^schylus  does;  it 
is  also  the  poet's  function  to  teach,  to  move,  and 
to  delight.  The  poet  teaches  character  through 
actions,  in  order  that  we  should  embrace  and  imi- 
tate the  good,  and  abstain  from  the  bad.     The  joy 

1  Maggi,  p.  97  sq. 
,  2  Cf.  Shelley,  Defence  of  Poetry,  p.  35,  "Tragedy  delights 
by  affording  a  shadow  of  that  pleasure  which  exists  in  pain," 
etc. 

8  Lezzioni,  p.  660. 


HI.]     THE  THEORY  OF  THE  DRAMA      79 

of  evil  men  is  turned  in  tragedy  to  bitterness,  and 
the  sorrow  of  good  men  to  joy.^  Scaliger  is  here 
following  the  extreme  view  of  poetic  justice  which 
we  have  found  expressed  in  so  many  of  the  Renais- 
sance writers.  In  the  last  century,  Dr.  Johnson, 
in  censuring  Shakespeare  for  the  tragic  fate  meted 
out  to  Cordelia  and  other  blameless  characters, 
showed  himself  an  inheritor  of  this  Renaissance 
tradition,  just  as  we  shall  see  that  Lessing  was  in 
other  matters.  For  Scaliger  the  moral  aim  of  the 
drama  is  attained  both  indirectly,  by  the  repre- 
sentation of  wickedness  ultimately  punished  and 
virtue  ultimately  rewarded,  and  more  directly  by 
the  enunciation  of  moral  precepts  throughout  the 
play.  With  the  Senecan  model  before  him,  such 
precepts  {sententioe)  became  the  very  props  of 
tragedy,  —  sunt  enim  quasi  cohimnce  aut  price  qiice- 
dam  universce  fabricce  illius,  —  and  so  they  remained 
in  modern  classical  tragedy.  Minturno  points  out 
that  these  sententioe  are  to  be  used  most  in  tragedy 
and  least  in  epic  poetry.^ 

Minturno  also  follows  Scaliger  in  conceiving  that 
the  purpose  of  tragedy  is  to  teach,  to  delight,  and 
to  move.  It  teaches  by  setting  before  us  an  exam- 
ple of  the  life  and  manners  of  superior  men,  who 
by  reason  of  human  error  have  fallen  into  extreme 
unhappiness.  It  delights  us  by  the  beauty  of  its 
verse,  its  diction,  its  song,  and  the  like.  Lastly,  it 
moves  us  to  wonder,  by  terrifying  us  and  exciting 
our  pity,  thus  purging  our  minds  of  such  matters. 
This  process  of  purgation  is  likened  by  Minturno 

1  Scaliger,  Poet.  vii.  i.  3 ;  iii.  96.  «  Arte  Poetica,  p.  287. 


80  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY        [chap. 

to  the  method  of  a  physician:  "As  a  physician 
eradicates,  by  means  of  poisonous  medicine,  the  per- 
fervid  poison  of  disease  which  affects  the  body,  so 
tragedy  purges  the  mind  of  its  impetuous  perturba- 
tions by  the  force  of  these  emotions  beautifully  ex- 
pressed in  verse."  ^ 

According  to  this  interpretation  of  the  Icatharsis, 
tragedy  is  a  mode  of  homoeopathic  treatment,  effect- 
ing the  cure  of  one  emotion  by  means  of  a  similar 
one  ;  and  we  find  Milton,  in  the  preface  to  Samson 
Agonistes,  explaining  the  katharsis  in  much  the  same 
manner :  — 

"Tragedy,  as  it  was  anciently  composed,  hath  been  ever 
held  the  gravest,  moralest,  and  most  profitable  of  all  other 
poems  ;  therefore  said  by  Aristotle  to  be  of  power,  by  rais- 
ing pity  and  fear,  or  terror,  to  purge  the  mind  of  those  and 
such  like  passions  ;  that  is,  to  temper  and  reduce  them  to 
just  measure  with  a  kind  of  delight,  stirred  up  by  reading  or 
seeing  those  passions  well  imitated.  Nor  is  nature  wanting 
in  her  own  effects  to  make  good  his  assertion ;  for  so  in 
physic,  things  of  melancholic  hue  and  quality  are  used 
against  melancholy,  sour  against  sour,  salt  to  remove  salt 
humours." 

This  passage  has  been  regarded  by  Twining,  Ber- 
nays,  and  other  modern  scholars  as  a  remarkable 
indication  of  Milton's  scholarship  and  critical  in- 
sight ;  ^  but  after  all,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  he  was 
merely  following  the  interpretation  of  the  Italian 
commentators  on  the  Poetics.  Their  writings  he 
had  studied  and  knew  thoroughly,  had  imbibed  all 
the  critical  ideas  of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  and  in 
the  very  preface  from  which  we  have  just  quoted, 
1  Arte  Poetica,  p.  77.  3  Butcher,  pp.  229,  230. 


III.]  THE   THEORY   OF   THE   DRAMA  81 

filled  as  it  is  with  ideas  that  may  be  traced  back 
to  Italian  sources,  he  acknowledges  following  "  the 
ancients  and  Italians,"  as  of  great  ''  authority  and 
fame,"  Like  Milton,  Minturno  conceived  of  tragedy 
as  having  an  ethical  aim ;  but  both  Milton  and  ]\Iin- 
turno  clearly  perceived  that  by  Jcatharsis  Aristotle 
had  reference  not  to  a  moral,  but  to  an  emotional, 
effect. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  discussions  on  the 
meaning  of  the  katharsis  is  to  be  found  in  a  letter 
of  Sperone  Speroni^  written  in  1565.  His  explana- 
tion of  the  passage  itself  is  quite  an  impossible  one,  if 
only  on  philological  grounds ;  but  his  argument  is 
very  interesting  and  very  modern.  He  points  out 
that  pity  and  fear  may  be  conceived  of  as  keep- 
ing the  spirit  of  men  in  bondage,  and  hence  it  is 
proper  that  we  should  be  purged  of  these  emotions. 
But  he  insists  that  Aristotle  cannot  refer  to  the 
complete  eradication  of  pity  and  fear  —  a  conception 
which  is  Stoic  rather  than  Peripatetic,  for  Aristotle 
does  not  require  us  to  free  ourselves  from  emotions, 
but  to  regulate  them,  since  in  themselves  they  are 
not  bad. 

III.    The  Characters  of  Tragedy 

Aristotle's  conception  of  the  ideal  tragic  hero 
is  based  on  the  assumption  that  the  function  of 
tragedy  is  to  produce  the  katharsis,  or  purgation, 
of  pity  and  fear,  —  "pity  being  felt  for  a  person 
who,  if  not  wholly  innocent,  meets  with  suffering 
1  Opere,  v.  178. 


82  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

beyond  his  deserts  ;  fear  being  awakened  when  the 
suiferer  is  a  man  of  like  nature  with  ourselves."  ^ 
From  this  it  follows  that  if  tragedy  represents  the 
fall  of  an  entirely  good  man  from  prosperity  to  ad- 
versity, neither  pity  nor  fear  is  produced,  and  the 
result  merely  shocks  and  repels  us.  If  an  entirely 
bad  man  is  represented  as  undergoing  a  change  from 
distress  to  prosperity,  not  only  do  we  feel  no  pity 
and  no  fear,  but  even  the  sense  of  justice  is  left 
unsatisfied.  If,  on  the  contrary,  such  a  man  en- 
tirely bad  falls  from  prosperity  into  adversity  and 
distress,  the  moral  sense  is  indeed  satisfied,  but 
without  the  tragic  emotions  of  pity  and  fear.  The 
ideal  hero  is  therefore  morally  between  the  two 
extremes,  neither  eminently  good  nor  entirely  bad, 
though  leaning  to  the  side  of  goodness ;  and  the 
misfortune  which  falls  upon  him  is  the  result  of 
some  great  flaw  of  character  or  fatal  error  of  con- 
duct.2 

This  conception  of  the  tragic  hero  was  the  subject 
of  considerable  discussion  in  the  Renaissance ;  in 
fact,  the  first  instance  in  Italian  criticism  of  the 
application  of  Aristotelian  ideas  to  the  theory  of 
tragedy  is  perhaps  to  be  found  in  the  reference  of 
Daniello  (1536)  to  the  tragic  hero's  fate.  Daniello, 
however,  understood  Aristotle's  meaning  very  in- 
completely, for  he  points  out  that  tragedy,  in  order 
to  imitate  most  perfectly  the  miserable  and  the  ter- 
rible, should  not  introduce  just  and  virtuous  men 
fallen  into  vice  and  injustice  through  the  adversity 
of  fortune,  for  this  is  more  wicked  than  it  is  miser- 
1  Butcher,  p.  280  sq  ^  Poet.  xiii.  2,  3. 


III.]  THE  THEOKY  OF  THE  DRAMA  83 

able  and  terrible,  nor  should  evil  men,  on  the  con- 
trary, be  introduced  as  changed  by  prosperity  into 
good  and  just  men.^  Here  Daniello  conceives  of 
tragedy  as  representing  the  change  of  a  man  from 
vice  to  virtue,  or  from  virtue  to  vice,  through  the 
medium  of  prosperity  or  misfortune.  This  is  a 
curious  misconception  of  Aristotle's  meaning.  Aris- 
totle refers,  not  to  the  ethical  effect  of  tragedy,  but  to 
the  effect  of  the  emotions  of  pity  and  terror  upon 
the  mind  of  the  spectator,  although  of  course  he 
does  not  wish  the  catastrophe  to  shock  the  moral 
sense  or  the  sense  of  justice. 

Giraldi  Cintio,  some  years  after  Daniello,  follows 
Aristotle  more  closely  in  the  conception  of  the 
tragic  hero ;  and  he  affirms,  moreover,  that  tragedy 
may  end  happily  or  unhappily  so  long  as  it  inspires 
pity  and  terror.  Now,  Aristotle  has  expressly 
stated  his  disapprobation  of  the  happy  ending  of 
tragedy,  for  in  speaking  of  tragedies  with  a  double 
thread  and  a  double  catastrophe,  that  is,  tragedies 
in  which  the  good  are  ultimately  rewarded  and  the 
bad  punished,  he  shows  that  such  a  conclusion  is 
decidedly  against  the  general  tragic  effect.^  Scal- 
iger's  conception  of  the  moral  function  of  the 
tragic  poet  as  rewarding  virtue  and  punishing  vice 
is  therefore  inconsistent  with  the  Aristotelian  con- 
ception ;  for,  as  Scaliger  insists  that  every  tragedy 
should  end  unhappily,  it  follows  that  only  the  good 
must  survive  and  only  the  bad  suffer.  Another 
critic  of  this  time,  Capriano  (1555),  points  out  that 
the  fatal  ending  of  tragedy  is  due  to  the  inability 
1  Daniello,  p.  38.  2  poet.  xiii.  7. 


84  LITERARY  CRITICISM   IN  ITALY       [chap. 

of  certain  illustrious  men  to  conduct  themselves 
with  prudence;  and  this  is  more  in  keeping  with 
Aristotle's  true  meaning.^ 

It  has  been  seen  that  Aristotle  regarded  a  per- 
fectly good  man  as  not  fitted  to  be  the  ideal  hero 
of  tragedy.  Minturno,  however,  asserts  that  tragedy 
is  grave  and  illustrious  because  its  characters  are 
illustrious,  and  that  therefore  he  can  see  no  reason, 
despite  Aristotle,  why  the  lives  of  perfect  men  or 
Christian  saints  should  not  be  represented  on  the 
stage,  and  why  even  the  life  of  Christ  would  not 
be  a  fit  subject  for  tragedy,^  This  is,  indeed,  Cor- 
neille's  opinion,  and  in  the  examen  of  his  Polyeucte 
he  cites  Minturno  in  justification  of  his  own  case. 
As  regards  the  other  characters  of  tragedy,  Min- 
turno states  a  curious  distinction  between  charac- 
ters fit  for  tragedy  and  those  fit  for  comedy.^  In 
the  first  place,  he  points  out  that  no  young  girls, 
with  the  exception  of  female  slaves,  should  appear 
in  comedy,  for  the  reason  that  the  women  of  the 
people  do  not  appear  in  public  until  marriage,  and 
would  be  sullied  by  the  company  of  the  low  char- 
acters of  comedy,  whereas  the  maidens  of  tragedy 
are  princesses,  accustomed  to  meet  and  converse 
with  noblemen  from  girlhood.  Secondly,  married 
women  are  always  represented  in  comedy  as  faith- 
ful, in  tragedy  as  unfaithful  to  their  husbands,  for 
the  reason  that  comedy  concludes  with  friendship 

1  Delia  Vera  Poetica,  cap.  iii. 

*  De  Poeta,  p.  182  sq. 

*  Arte  Poetica,  p.  118  sq.;  also  in  Scaliger  and  Giraldi 
Cintio. 


III.]  THE   THEORY   OF   THE   DRAMA  85 

and  tranquillity,  and  unfaithful  relations  could  never 
end  happily,  while  the  love  depicted  in  tragedy 
serves  to  bring  about  the  tragic  ruin  of  great 
houses.  Thirdly,  in  comedy  old  men  are  often 
represented  as  in  love,  but  never  in  tragedy,  for 
an  amorous  old  man  is  conducive  to  laughter, 
which  comedy  aims  at  producing,  but  which  would 
be  wholly  out  of  keeping  with  the  gravity  required 
in  tragedy.  These  distinctions  are  of  course  de- 
duced from  the  practice  of  the  Latin  drama  —  the 
tragedies  of  Seneca  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
comedies  of  Plautus  and  Terence  on  the  other. 

In  a  certain  passage  of  Aristotle's  Poetics  there 
is  a  formulation  of  the  requirements  of  character- 
drawing  in  the  drama.^  In  this  passage  Aristotle 
says  that  the  characters  must  be  good;  that  they 
must  be  drawn  with  propriety,  that  is,  in  keeping 
with  the  type  to  which  they  belong;  that  they 
must  be  true  to  life,  something  quite  distinct 
either  from  goodness  or  propriety;  and  that  the 
characters  must  be  self-consistent.  This  passage 
gave  rise  to  a  curious  conception  of  character  in 
the  Renaissance  and  throughout  the  period  of  clas- 
sicism. According  to  this,  the  conception  of  de- 
corum, it  was  insisted  that  every  old  man  should 
have  such  and  such  characteristics,  every  young 
man  certain  others,  and  so  on  for  the  soldier,  the 
merchant,  the  Florentine  or  Parisian,  and  the  like. 
This  fixed  and  formal  mode  of  regarding  character 
was  connected  with  the  distinction  of  rank  as  the 
fundamental  difference  between  the  characters  of 
1  Foet.  XV.  1-5. 


86  LITERARY  CRITICISM   IN  ITALY        [chap. 

tragedy  and  comedy,  and  it  was  really  founded  on 
a  passage  in  Horace's  Ars  Poetica,  — 

"  TEtatis  cujusque  notandi  sunt  tibi  mores,"  ^ 
and  on  the  rhetorical  descriptions  of  the  various 
characteristics  of  men  in  the  second  book  of  Aris- 
totle's Rhetoric. 

The  explanation  of  the  Eenaissance  concep- 
tion of  decorum  may  start  from  either  of  two 
points  of  view.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  to  be 
noted  that  Horace,  and  after  him  the  critics  of  the 
Renaissance,  set  about  to  transpose  to  the  domain 
of  poetry  the  tentative  distinctions  of  character 
formulated  by  Aristotle,  in  the  Rhetoric,  simply 
for  the  purposes  of  rhetorical  exposition.  These 
distinctions,  it  must  be  repeated,  were  rhetorical 
and  not  aesthetic,  and  they  are  therefore  not 
alluded  to  by  Aristotle  in  the  Poetics.  The  result 
of  the  attempt  to  transpose  them  to  the  domain  of 
poetry  led  to  a  hardening  and  crystallization  of 
character  in  the  classic  drama.  But  the  aesthetic 
misconception  implied  by  such  an  attempt  is  only 
too  obvious.  In  such  a  system  poetry  is  held 
accountable,  not  to  the  ideal  truth  of  human  life, 
but  to  certain  arbitrary,  or  at  best  merely  empirical, 
formulae  of  rhetorical  theory.  The  Renaissance 
was  in  this  merely  doing  for  character  what  was 
being  done  for  all  the  other  elements  of  art.  Every 
such  element,  when  once  discriminated  and  defi- 
nitely formulated,  became  fixed  as  a  necessary  and 
inviolable  substitute  for  the  reality  which  had  thus 
been  analyzed. 

1  Ars  Poet.  154  sq. 


III.]  THE   THEOEY   OF   THE    DRAMA  87 

But  we  may  look  at  the  principle  of  deconcm  from 
another  point  of  view.  A  much  deeper  question  — 
the  question  of  social  distinctions  —  is  here  in- 
volved. The  observance  of  decorum  necessitated 
the  maintenance  of  the  social  distinctions  which 
formed  the  basis  of  Eenaissance  life  and  of  Renais- 
sance literature.  It  was  this  same  tendency  which 
caused  the  tragedy  of  classicism  to  exclude  all  but 
characters  of  the  highest  rank.  Speaking  of  narra- 
tive poetry,  Muzio  (1551),  while  allowing  kings  to 
mingle  with  the  masses,  considers  it  absolutely  im- 
proper for  one  of  the  people,  even  for  a  moment,  to 
assume  the  sceptre.^  Accordingly,  men  as  distin- 
guished by  the  accidents  of  rank,  profession,  coun- 
try, and  not  as  distinguished  by  that  only  which  art 
should  take  cognizance  of,  character,  became  the  sub- 
jects of  the  literature  of  classicism ;  and  in  so  far 
as  this  is  true,  that  literature  loses  something  of 
the  profundity  and  the  universality  of  the  highest 
art. 

This  element  of  decorum  is  to  be  found  in  all  the 
critics  of  the  Renaissance  from  the  time  of  Vida  ^ 
and  Daniello.*  So  essential  became  the  observance 
of  decorum  that  Muzio  and  Capriano  both  consid- 
ered it  the  most  serious  charge  to  be  made  against 
Homer,  that  he  was  not  always  observant  of  it. 
Capriano,  comparing  Virgil  with  Homer,  asserts 
that  the  Latin  poet  surpasses  the  Greek  in  elo- 
quence, in  dignity,  in  grandeur  of  style,  but  beyond 
everything   in    decorum.*    The   seeming   vulgarity 

1  Muzio,  p.  80.  8  Poetica,  p.  36  sq. 

2  Pope,  i.  165.  *  Capriano,  op.  cit.,  cap.  v. 


88  LITERAKY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

of  some  of  Homer's  similes,  and  even  of  tlie 
actions  of  some  of  his  characters,  appeared  to  the 
Eenaissance  a  most  serious  blemish;  and  it  was 
this  that  led  Scaliger  to  rate  Homer  not  only  below 
Virgil,  but  even  below  Musaeus.  In  Minturno  and 
Scaliger  we  find  every  detail  of  character  minutely 
analyzed.  The  poet  is  told  how  young  men  and  old 
men  should  act,  should  talk,  and  should  dress ;  and 
no  deviations  from  these  fixed  formulae  were  allowed 
under  any  circumstances.  As  a  result  of  this,  even 
when  the  poet  liberated  himself  from  these  concep- 
tions, and  aimed  at  depicting  character  in  its  true 
sense,  we  find  character,  but  never  the  development 
of  character,  portrayed  in  the  neo-classic  drama. 
The  character  was  fixed  from  the  beginning  of  the 
play  to  the  end ;  and  it  is  here  that  we  may  find 
the  origin  of  Ben  Jonson's  conception  of  "hu- 
mours." In  one  of  Salviati's  lectures,  Del  Traitato 
della  Poetica,^  Salviati  defines  a  humour  as  "a 
peculiar  quality  of  nature  according  to  which  every 
one  is  inclined  to  some  special  thing  more  than  to 
any  other."  This  would  apply  very  distinctly  to 
the  sense  in  which  the  Elizabethans  used  the  word. 
Thus  Jonson  himself,  in  the  Induction  of  Every 
Man  out  of  Ms  Humour,  after  expounding  the  med- 
ical notion  of  a  humour,  says :  — 

*'It  may,  by  metaphor,  apply  itself 
Unto  the  general  disposition  : 
As  when  some  one  peculiar  quality 
'  Doth  so  possess  a  man,  that  it  doth  draw 

All  his  effects,  his  spirits,  and  his  powers, 

1  Cod.  Magliabechiano,  vii.  7,  715. 


III.]  THE   THEORY   OF   THE   DRAMA  89 

In  their  confluctions,  all  to  run  one  way, 
This  may  be  truly  said  to  be  a  humour." 

The  origin  of  the  term  '{ humour,"  in  Jonson's  sense, 
has  never  been  carefully  studied.  Jonson's  editors 
speak  of  it  as  peculiar  to  the  English  language,  and 
as  first  used  in  this  sense  about  Jonson's  period. 
It  is  not  our  purpose  to  go  further  into  this  ques- 
tion; but  Salviati's  definition  is  close  enough  to 
Jonson's  to  indicate  that  the  origin  of  this  term,  as 
of  all  other  critical  terms  and  critical  ideas  through- 
out sixteenth-century  Europe,  must  be  looked  for  in 
the  aesthetic  literature  of  Italy.  ^ 

IV.    The  Dramatic  Unities 

In  his  definition  of  tragedy  Aristotle  says  that 
the  play  must  be  complete  or  perfect,  that  is,  it 
must  have  unity.  By  unity  of  plot  he  does  not 
mean  merely  the  unity  given  by  a  single  hero,  for, 
as  he  says,  "  infinitely  various  are  the  incidents  in 
one  man's  life  which  cannot  be  reduced  to  unity ; 
and  so,  too,  there  are  many  actions  of  one  man  out 
of  which  we  cannot  make  one  action.  Hence  the 
error,  as  it  appears,  of  all  poets  who  have  composed 
a  Heracleid,  a  Theseid,  or  other  poems  of  the  kind. 
They  imagine  that  as  Heracles  was  one  man,  the 
story  of  Heracles  ought  also  to  be  a  unity."  ^  This 
is  Aristotle's  statement  of  the  unity  of  action.     But 

1  Another  expression  of  Jonson's,  "  small  Latin  and  less 
Greek,"  may  perhaps  be  traced  to  Miuturno's  "  poco  del  Latino 
e  pochissimo  del  Greco,"  Arte  Poetica,  p.  158. 

2  Poet.  viii.  1-4. 


90  LITEKARY   CRITICISM   IN  ITALY      [chap. 

what  is  the  origin  of  the  two  other  unities,  —  the 
unities  of  time  and  place  ?  There  is  in  the  Poetics 
but  a  single  reference  to  the  time-limit  of  the  tragic 
action  and  none  whatsoever  to  the  so-called  unity 
of  place.  Aristotle  says  that  the  action  of  trag- 
edy and  that  of  epic  poetry  differ  in  length,  "for 
tragedy  endeavors,  so  far  as  possible,  to  confine 
itself  to  a  single  revolution  of  the  sun,  or  but 
slightly  to  exceed  this  limit ;  whereas  the  epic 
action  has  no  limits  of  time."  ^  This  passage  is  the 
incidental  statement  of  an  historical  fact;  it  is 
merely  a  tentative  deduction  from  the  usual  prac- 
tice of  Greek  tragedy,  and  Aristotle  never  con- 
ceived of  it  as  an  inviolable  law  of  the  drama.  Of 
the  three  unities  which  play  so  prominent  a  part  in 
modern  classical  drama,  the  unity  of  action  was  the 
main,  and,  in  fact,  the  only  unity  which  Aristotle 
knew  or  insisted  on.  But  from  his  incidental  ref- 
erence to  the  general  time-limits  of  Greek  tragedy, 
the  Renaissance  formulated  the  unity  of  time,  and 
deduced  from  it  also  the  unity  of  place,  to  which 
there  is  absolutely  no  reference  either  in  Aristotle 
or  in  any  other  ancient  writer  whatever.  It  is  to  the 
Italians  of  the  Renaissance,  and  not  to  the  French 
critics  of  the  seventeenth  century,  that  the  world 
owes  the  formulation  of  the  three  unities.  The 
attention  of  scholars  was  first  called  to  this  fact 
about  twenty  years  ago,  by  the  brochure  of  a  Swiss 
scholar,  H.  Breitinger,  on  the  unities  of  Aristotle 
before  Corneille's  Cid;  but  the  gradual  develop- 
ment and  formulation  of  the  three  unities  have 
1  Poet.  V.  4. 


III.]  THE   THEORY   OF  THE   DRAMA  91 

never  been  systematically  worked  out  We  shall 
endeavor  here  to  trace  their  history  during  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  to  explain  the  processes  by 
which  they  developed. 

The  first  reference  in  modern  literature  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  unity  of  time  is  to  be  found  in 
Giraldi  Cintio's  Discorso  sulle  Comedie  e  sidle  Trage- 
die.  He  says  that  comedy  and  tragedy  agree, 
among  other  things,  in  the  limitation  of  the  action 
to  one  day  or  but  little  more ;  ^  and  he  has  thus  for 
the  first  time  converted  Aristotle's  statement  of  an 
historical  fact  into  a  dramatic  law.  Moreover,  he 
has  changed  Aristotle's  phrase,  that  tragedy  limits 
itself  "  to  a  single  revolution  of  the  sun,"  into  the 
more  definite  expression  of  "a  single  day."  He 
points  out  that  Euripides,  in  the  Heraclidce,  on 
account  of  the  long  distance  between  the  places  in 
the  action,  had  been  unable  to  limit  the  action  to 
one  day.  Now,  as  Aristotle  must  have  known 
many  of  the  best  Greek  dramas  which  are  now  lost, 
it  was  probably  in  keeping  with  the  practice  of 
such  dramas  that  their  actions  were  not  strictly 
confined  within  the  limits  of  one  day.  Aristotle, 
therefore,  intentionally  allowed  the  drama  a 
slightly  longer  space  of  time  than  a  single  day. 
The  unity  of  time,  accordingly,  becomes  a  part  of 
the  theory  of  the  drama  between  1540  and  1545, 
but  it  was  not  until  almost  exactly  a  century  later 
that  it  became  an  invariable  rule  of  the  dramatic 
literature  of  France  and  of  the  world. 

In  Robortelli  (1548)  we  find  Aristotle's  phrase, 
1  Giraldi  Cintio,  ii.  10  sq. 


92  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

"a  single  revolution  of  the  sun,"  restricted  to  the 
artificial  day  of  twelve  hours;  for  as  tragedy  can 
contain  only  one  single  and  continuous  action,  and  as 
people  are  accustomed  to  sleep  in  the  night,  it  follows 
that  the  tragic  action  cannot  be  continued  beyond 
one  artificial  day.  This  holds  good  of  comedy  as 
well  as  tragedy,  for  the  length  of  the  fable  in  each  is 
the  same.^  Segni  (1549)  differs  from  Kobortelli, 
however,  in  regarding  a  single  revolution  of  the  sun 
as  referring  not  to  the  artificial  day  of  twelve  hours, 
but  to  the  natural  day  of  twenty-four  hours,  because 
various  matters  treated  in  tragedy,  and  even  in 
comedy,  are  such  as  are  more  likely  to  happen 
in  the  night  (adulteries,  murders,  and  the  like)  ; 
and  if  it  be  said  that  night  is  naturally  the  time  for 
repose,  Segni  answers  that  unjust  people  act  con- 
trary to  the  laws  of  nature.^  It  was  about  this 
time,  then,  that  there  commenced  the  historic  con- 
troversy as  to  what  Aristotle  meant  by  limiting 
tragedy  to  one  day ;  and  three-quarters  of  a  century 
later,  in  1623,  Beni  could  cite  thirteen  different 
opinions  of  scholars  on  this  question. 

Trissino,  in  his  Poetica  (1563),  paraphrases  as 
follows  the  passage  in  Aristotle  which  refers  to 
the  unity  of  time  :  "  They  also  differ  in  length, 
for  tragedy  terminates  in  one  day,  that  is,  one 
period  of  the  sun,  or  but  little  more,  while  there  is 
no  time  determined  for  epic  poetry,  as  indeed  was 
the  custom  with  tragedy  and  comedy  at  their  be- 

1  Robortelli,  pp.  50,  275,  and  appendix,  p.  45.    Cf.  Luisino's 
Commentary  on  Horace's  Ars  Poetica,  1554,  p.  40. 
a  B.  Segni,  p.  170  v. 


Ill,]  THE   THEORY   OF   THE   DRAMA  93 

ginning,  and  is  even  today  among  ignorant  poets."  ^ 
Here  for  the  first  time,  as  a  French  critic  remarks, 
the  observance  of  the  unity  of  time  is  made  a  dis- 
tinction between  the  learned  and  the  ignorant 
poet.^  It  is  evident  that  Trissino  conceives  of  the 
unity  of  time  as  an  artistic  principle  which  has 
helped  to  save  dramatic  poetry  from  the  formless- 
ness and  chaotic  condition  of  the  mediaeval  drama. 
So  that  the  unity  of  time  became  not  only  a  dra- 
matic law,  but  one  the  observation  of  which  distin- 
guished the  dramatic  artist  from  the  mere  ignorant 
compiler  of  popular  plays. 

There  is  in  none  of  the  writers  we  have  men- 
tioned so  far  any  reference  to  the  unity  of  place, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  there  is  no  allusion  to 
such  a  requirement  for  the  drama  in  Aristotle's 
Poetics.  Maggi's  discussion  of  the  unity  of  time, 
in  his  commentary  on  the  Poetics  (1550),  is  of 
particular  interest  as  preparing  the  way  for  the 
third  imity.  Maggi  attempts  to  explain  logically 
the  reason  for  the  unity  of  time.^  Why  should 
tragedy  be  limited  as  to  time,  and  not  epic  poetry  ? 
According  to  him,  this  difference  is  to  be  explained 
by  the  fact  that  the  drama  is  represented  on  the 
stage  before  our  eyes,  and  if  we  should  see  the  ac- 
tions of  a  whole  month  performed  in  about  the 
time  it  takes  to  perform  the  play,  that  is,  two  or 
three  hours,  the  performance  would  be  absolutely 
incredible.  For  example,  says  Maggi,  if  in  a  trag- 
edy we  should  send  a  messenger  to  Egypt,  and  he 
would  return  in  an  hour,  would  not  the  spectator 

1  Trissino,  ii.  95.         2  Brunetiere,  i.  69.        '  Maggi,  p.  94. 


94  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

regard  this  as  ridiculous  ?  In  the  epic,  on  the  con- 
trary, we  do  not  see  the  actions  performed,  and  so 
do  not  feel  the  need  of  limiting  them  to  any  par- 
ticular time.  Now,  it  is  to  be  noted  here  that  this 
limitation  of  time  is  based  on  the  idea  of  represen- 
tation. The  duration  of  the  action  of  the  drama 
itself  must  fairly  coincide  with  the  duration  of  its 
representation  on  the  stage.  This  is  the  principle 
which  led  to  the  acceptance  of  the  unity  of  place, 
and  upon  which  it  is  based.  Limit  the  time  of  the 
action  to  the  time  of  representation,  and  it  follows 
that  the  place  of  the  action  must  be  limited  to  the 
place  of  representation.  Such  a  limitation  is  of 
course  a  piece  of  realism  wholly  out  of  keeping 
with  the  true  dramatic  illusion ;  but  it  was  almost 
exclusively  in  the  drama  that  classicism  tended 
toward  a  minuter  realism  than  could  be  justified  by 
the  Aristotelian  canons.  In  Maggi  the  beginnings 
of  the  unity  of  place  are  evident,  inasmuch  as  he 
finds  that  the  requirements  of  the  representation 
do  not  permit  a  messenger  or  any  character  in  the 
drama  to  be  sent  very  far  from  the  place  where  the 
action  is  being  performed.  The  closer  action  and 
representation  coincide,  the  clearer  becomes  the  ne- 
cessity of  a  limitation  in  place  as  well  as  in  time ; 
and  it  was  on  this  principle  that  Scaliger  and 
Castelvetro,  somewhat  later,  formulated  the  three 
unities. 

There  is,  indeed,  in  Scaliger  (1561)  no  direct 
statement  of  the  unity  of  time ;  but  the  reference 
to  it  is  nevertheless  unmistakable.  First  of  all, 
Scaliger  requires   that  the  events  be  so  arranged 


in.]     THE  THEORY  OF  THE  DRAMA      95 

and  disposed  that  they  approach  nearest  to  actual 
truth  (lit  quam  proxime  accedant  ad  veritatern)} 
This  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  the  duration  of 
the  action,  its  place,  its  mode  of  procedure,  must 
correspond  more  or  less  exactly  with  the  represen- 
tation itself.  The  dramatic  poet  must  aim,  beyond 
all  things,  at  reproducing  the  actual  conditions  of 
life.  The  verisimile,  the  vraisemhlahle,  in  the  ety- 
mological sense  of  these  words,  must  be  the  final 
criterion  of  dramatic  composition.  It  is  not  suffi- 
cient that  the  spectator  should  be  satisfied  with 
the  action  as  typical  of  similar  actions  in  life.  An 
absolutely  perfect  illusion  must  prevail;  the  spec- 
tator must  be  moved  by  the  actions  of  the  play 
exactly  as  if  they  were  those  of  real  life. 

This  notion  of  the  verisimile,  and  of  its  effect  of 
perfect  illusion  on  the  spectator's  mind,  prevailed 
throughout  the  period  of  classicism,  and  was  vigor- 
ously defended  by  no  less  a  critic  than  Voltaire 
himself.  Accordingly,  as  Maggi  first  pointed  out, 
if  the  playwright,  in  the  few  hovirs  it  takes  to 
represent  the  whole  play,  requires  one  of  his  char- 
acters to  perform  an  action  that  cannot  be  done  in 
less  than  a  month,  this  impression  of  actual  truth 
and  perfect  illusion  will  not  be  left  on  the  specta- 
tor's mind.  "Therefore,"  says  Scaliger,  "those 
battles  and  assaults  which  take  place  about  Thebes 
in  the  space  of  two  hours  do  not  please  me ;  no  sen- 
sible poet  should  make  any  one  move  from  Delphi 
to  Thebes,  or   from   Thebes   to   Athens,  in  a  mo- 

1  Scaliger,  iii.  96.  So  Robortelli,  p.  53,  speaks  of  tragedy  as 
lepreseuting  things  quae  multum  accedunt  ad  veritatern  ipsam. 


96  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

ment's  time.  Agamemnon  is  buried  by  ^Eschylus 
after  being  killed,  and  Lichas  is  hurled  into  the 
sea  by  Hercules ;  but  this  cannot  be  represented 
without  violence  to  truth.  Accordingly,  the  poet 
should  choose  the  briefest  possible  argument,  and 
should  enliven  it  by  means  of  episodes  and  details. 
.  •  .  Since  the  whole  play  is  represented  on  the 
stage  in  six  or  eight  hours,  it  is  not  in  accordance 
with  the  exact  appearance  of  truth  (hand  verisimile 
est)  that  within  that  brief  space  of  time  a  tempest 
should  arise  and  a  shipwreck  occur,  out  of  sight  of 
land." 

The  observance  of  the  unity  of  time  could  not 
be  demanded  in  clearer  or  more  forcible  terms 
than  this.  But  it  is  a  mistake  to  construe  this 
passage  into  a  statement  of  the  unity  of  place.* 
When  Scaliger  says  that  the  poet  should  not  move 
any  one  of  the  characters  from  Delphi  to  Thebes, 
or  from  Thebes  to  Athens,  in  a  moment's  time,  he 
is  referring  to  the  exigencies,  not  of  place,  but  of 
time.  In  this,  as  in  many  other  things,  he  is  merely 
following  Maggi,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  says  that 
it  is  ridiculous  for  a  dramatist  to  have  a  messenger 
go  to  Egypt  with  a  message  and  return  in  an  hour. 
The  characters,  according  to  Scaliger,  should  not 
move  from  Delphi  to  Thebes  in  a  moment,  not 
because  the  action  need  necessarily  occur  in  one 
single  place,  but  because  the  characters  cannot 
with  any  appearance  of  truth  go  a  great  distance 
in  a  short  space  of  time.  This  is  an  approach  to 
the  unity  of  place,  and  had  Scaliger  followed  his 
1  E.g.  Lintilhac,  De  Seal.  Fo6t.  p.  32, 


III.]  THE   THEORY   OF   THE   DRAMA  97 

contention  to  its  logical  conclusion,  lie  must  cer- 
tainly have  formulated  the  three  unities.  But  by 
requiring  the  action  to  be  disposed  with  the  great- 
est possible  approach  to  the  actual  truth,  or,  in 
other  words,  by  insisting  that  the  action  must  co- 
incide with  the  representation,  Scaliger  helped 
more  than  any  of  his  predecessors  to  the  final  rec- 
ognition of  the  unity  of  place. 

In  Minturno  ^  and  in  Vettori  ^  we  find  a  tendency 
to  restrict  the  duration  of  the  epic  as  well  as  the 
tragic  action.  It  has  been  seen  that  Aristotle  dis- 
tinctly says  that  while  the  action  of  tragedy  gener- 
ally endeavors  to  confine  itself  within  a  period  of 
about  one  day,  that  of  epic  poetry  has  no  determined 
time.  Minturno,  however,  alludes  to  the  unity  of 
time  in  the  following  words :  "  Whoever  examines 
well  the  works  of  the  most  esteemed  ancient  writers, 
will  find  that  the  action  represented  on  the  stage  is 
terminated  in  one  day,  or  does  not  pass  beyond  the 
space  of  two  days;  while  the  epic  has  a  longer 
period  of  time,  except  that  its  action  cannot  exceed 
one  year  in  duration."  ^  This  limitation  Minturno 
deduces  from  the  practice  of  Homer  and  Virgil.* 
The  action  of  the  Iliad  begins  in  the  tenth  year  of 
the  Trojan  war,  and  lasts  one  year ;  the  action  of 
the  ^neid  begins  in  the  seventh  year  after  the  de- 
parture of  ^Eneas  from  Troy,  and  also  lasts  one 
year. 

Castelvetro,  however,  was  the  first  theorist  to 
formulate  the  unity  of  place,  and  thus  to  give  the 

1  De  Poeta,  pp.  185,  281.  3  Arte  Poet.  pp.  71, 117. 

2  Vettori,  p.  250.  *  Ibid.  p.  12. 

H 


98  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY      [chap. 

three  unities  their  final  form.  We  have  seen  that 
Castelvetro's  theory  of  the  drama  was  based  entirely 
upon  the  notion  of  stage  representation.  All  the 
essentials  of  dramatic  literature  are  thus  fixed  by 
the  exigencies  of  the  stage.  The  stage  is  a  circum- 
scribed space,  and  the  play  must  be  performed  upon 
it  within  a  period  of  time  limited  by  the  physical 
necessities  of  the  spectators.  It  is  from  these  two 
facts  that  Castelvetro  deduces  the  unities  of  time 
and  place.  "While  asserting  that  Aristotle  held  it 
as  cosa  fermissima  e  verissima  that  the  tragic  action 
cannot  exceed  the  length  of  an  artificial  day  of 
twelve  hours,  he  does  not  think  that  Aristotle  him- 
self understood  the  real  reason  of  this  limitation.^ 
In  the  seventh  chapter  of  the  Poetics  Aristotle  says 
that  the  length  of  the  plot  is  limited  by  the  pos- 
sibility of  its  being  carried  in  the  memory  of  the 
spectator  conveniently  at  one  time.  But  this,  it  is 
urged,  would  restrict  the  epic  as  well  as  the  tragic 
fable  to  one  day.  The  difference  between  epic  and 
dramatic  poetry  in  this  respect  is  to  be  found  in  the 
essential  difference  between  the  conditions  of  nar- 
rative and  scenic  poetry.^  Narrative  poetry  can  in 
a  short  time  narrate  things  that  happen  in  many 
days  or  months  or  even  years;  but  scenic  poetry, 
which  spends  as  many  hours  in  representing  things 
as  it  actually  takes  to  do  them  in  life,  does  quite 
otherwise.  In  epic  poetry  words  can  present  to 
our  mtellect  things  distant  in  space  and  time  ;  but 
in  dramatic  poetry  the  whole  action  occurs  before 
our  eyes,  and  is  accordingly  limited  to  what  we  can 
1  Castelvetro,  Poetica,  pp.  157,  170.         ^  jua.  pp.  57,  109. 


III.]  THE   THEORY   OF   THE   DRAMA  99 

actually  see  "with  our  own  senses,  that  is,  to  that 
brief  duration  of  time  and  to  that  small  amount  of 
space  in  which  the  actors  are  occupied  in  acting,  and 
not  any  other  time  or  place.  But  as  the  restricted 
place  is  the  stage,  so  the  restricted  time  is  that  in 
which  the  spectators  can  at  their  ease  remain  sitting 
through  a  continuous  performance;  and  this  time, 
on  account  of  the  physical  necessities  of  the  specta- 
tors, such  as  eating,  drinking,  and  sleeping,  cannot 
well  go  beyond  the  duration  of  one  revolution  of  the 
sun.  So  that  not  only  is  the  unity  of  time  an 
essential  dramatic  requirement,  but  it  is  in  fact  im- 
possible for  the  dramatist  to  do  otherwise  even 
should  he  desire  to  do  so  —  a  conclusion  which  is 
of  course  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the  whole 
argument. 

In  another  place  Castelvetro  more  briefly  formu- 
lates the  law  of  the  unities  in  the  definitive  form 
in  which  it  was  to  remain  throughout  the  period 
of  classicism :  "  La  mutatione  tragica  non  puo 
tirar  con  esso  seco  se  non  una  giornata  e  un 
luogo.  "*  The  unities  of  time  and  place  are  for 
Castelvetro  so  very  important  that  the  unity  of 
action,  which  is  for  Aristotle  the  only  essential  of 
the  drama,  is  entirely  subordinated  to  them.  In 
fact,  Castelvetro  specifically  says  that  the  unity  of 
action  is  not  essential  to  the  drama,  but  is  merely 
made  expedient  by  the  requirements  of  time  and 
place.  "  In  comedy  and  tragedy,"  he  says,  "  there 
is  usually  one  action,  not  because  the  fable  is  un- 
fitted to  contain  more  than  one  action,  but  because 

1  Castelvetro,  Poetica,  p.  534.     Cf.  Boileau,  Art  Poit.  iii.  45. 


100  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN  ITALY       [chap. 

the  restricted  space  in  which  the  action  is  repre- 
sented, and  the  limited  time,  twelve  hours  at  the 
/  very   most,   do  not  permit  of   a  multitude  of  ac- 

tions."^ In  a  similar  manner  Castelvetro  applies 
the  law  of  the  unities  to  epic  poetry.  ^.Ithough 
the  epic  action  can  be  accomplished  in  many  places 
and  at  diverse  times,  yet  as  it  is  more  commendable 
and  pleasurable  to  have  a  single  action,  so  it  is 
better  for  the  action  to  confine  itself  to  a  short  time 
and  to  but  few  places.  In  other  words,  the  more 
the  epic  attempts  to  restrict  itself  to  the  unities  of 
place  and  time,  the  better,  according  to  Castelvetro, 
it  will  be.^  Moreover,  Castelvetro  was  not  merely 
the  first  one  to  formulate  the  unities  in  their  defini- 
tive form,  but  he  was  also  the  first  to  insist  upon 
them  as  inviolable  laws  of  the  drama;  and  he 
refers  to  them  over  and  over  again  in  the  pages  of 
his  commentary  on  the  Poetics.^ 

This  then  is  the  origin  of  the  unities.  Our  dis- 
cussion must  have  made  it  clear  how  little  they 
deserve  the  traditional  title  of  Aristotelian  unities, 
or  as  a  recent  critic  with  equal  inaccuracy  calls 
them,  the  Scaligerian  unities  (unith  scaligeriennes).* 
Nor  were  they,  as  we  have  seen,  first  formulated  in 
France,  though  this  was  the  opinion  of  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries.  Thus  Dryden 
says  that  "  the  unity  of  place,  however  it  might  be 

1  Castelvetro,  Poetica,  p.  179. 

2  jua.  pp.  534,  535. 

8  Other  allusions  to  the  unities,  hesides  those  already  men- 
tioned, will  be  found  in  Castelvetro,  Poetica,  pp.  163-165,  168- 
171,  191,  397,  501,  527,  531-536,  692,  697,  etc. 

*  Lintilhuc,  in  the  Nouvelle  Revue,  Ixiv.  541. 


in.]  THE   THEORY  OF  THE   DRAMA  101 

practised  by  the  ancients,  was  never  one  of  their 
rules :  we  neither  find  it  in  Aristotle,  Horace,  or 
any  who  have  written  of  it,  till  in  our  age  the 
French  poets  first  made  it  a  precept  of  the  stage."  ^ 
It  may  be  said,  therefore,  that  just  as  the  unity  of 
action  is  par  excellence  the  Aristotelian  unity,  so  the 
unities  of  time  and  place  are  beyond  a  doubt  the 
Italian  unities.  They  enter  the  critical  literatxu-e 
of  Europe  from  the  time  of  Castelvetro,  and  may 
almost  be  said  to  be  the  last  contributions  of  Italy 
to  literary  criticism.  Two  years  after  their  formu- 
lation by  Castelvetro  they  were  introduced  into 
France,  and  a  dozen  years  after  this  formulation, 
into  England.  It  was  not  until  1636,  however, 
that  they  became  fixed  in  modern  dramatic  litera- 
ture, as  a  result  of  the  Cid  controversy.  This  is 
approximately  a  hundred  years  after  the  first  men- 
tion of  the  unity  of  time  in  Italian  criticism. 

V.   Comedy 

The  treatment  of  comedy  in  the  literary  criticism 
of  this  period  is  entirely  confined  to  a  discussion 
and  elaboration  of  the  little  that  Aristotle  says  on 
the  subject  of  comedy  in  the  Poetics.  Aristotle,  it 
will  be  remembered,  had  distinguished  tragedy  from 
comedy  in  that  the  former  deals  with  the  nobler, 
the  latter  with  the  baser,  sort  of  actions.  Comedy 
is  an  imitation  of  characters  of  a  lower  type  than 
those  of  tragedy,  —  characters  of  a  lower  type 
•indeed,  but  not  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word  bad. 
1  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy,  p.  31. 


102  LITEKARY   CRITICISM  IN   ITALY       [chap. 

"The  ludicrous  is  merely  a  subdivision  of  the 
ugly.  It  may  be  delined  as  a  defect  or  ugliness 
which  is  not  painful  or  destructive.  Thus,  for 
example,  the  comic  mask  is  ugly  and  distorted,  but 
does  not  cause  pain."  ^  From  these  few  hints  the 
Italian  theorists  constructed  a  body  of  comic  doc- 
trine. There  is,  however,  in  the  critical  literature 
of  this  period  no  attempt  to  explain  the  theory  of 
the  indigenous  Italian  comedy,  the  commeclia  delV 
arte.  The  classical  comedies  of  Plautus  and  Terence 
were  the  models,  and  Aristotle's  Poetics  the  guide, 
of  all  the  discussions  on  comedy  during  the  Eenais- 
sance.  The  distinction  between  the  characters  of 
comedy  and  tragedy  has  already  been  explained  in 
sufficient  detail.  All  that  remains  to  be  done  in 
treating  of  comedy  is  to  indicate  as  briefly  as 
possible  such  definitions  of  it  as  were  formulated 
by  the  Renaissance,  and  the  special  function  which 
the  Renaissance  understood  comedy  to  possess. 

According  to  Trissino  (1563),  the  comic  poet  deals 
only  with  base  things,  and  for  the  single  purpose 
of  chastising  them.  As  tragedy  attains  its  moral 
end  through  the  medium  of  pity  and  fear,  comedy 
does  so  by  means  of  the  chastisemtot  and  vitupera- 
tion of  things  that  are  base  and  evil.^  The  comic 
poet,  however,  is  not  to  deal  with  all  sorts  of  vices, 
but  only  such  as  give  rise  to  ridicule,  that  is,  the 
jocose  actions  of  humble  and  unknown  persons. 
Laughter  proceeds  from  a  certain  delight  or  pleas- 
ure arising  from  the  sight  of  objects  of  ugliness. 

1  Poet.  V.  1.     Cf.  Rhet.  iii.  18. 

2  Trissino,  ii.  120.     Cf.  Butcher,  p.  203  sq. 


III.]  THE   THEORY   OF  THE   DRAMA  103 

We  do  not  laugh  at  a  beautiful  woman,  a  gorgeous 
jewel,  or  beautiful  music ;  but  a  distortion  or  de- 
formity, such  as  a  silly  speech,  an  ugly  face,  or  a 
clumsy  movement,  makes  us  laugh.  We  do  not 
laugh  at  the  benefits  of  others ;  the  finder  of  a 
purse,  for  example,  arouses  not  laughter  but  envy. 
But  we  do  laugh  at  some  one  who  has  fallen  into 
the  mud,  because,  as  Lucretius  says,  it  is  sweet  to 
find  in  others  some  evil  not  to  be  found  in  ourselves. 
Yet  great  evils,  so  far  from  causing  us  to  laugh, 
arouse  pity  and  fear,  because  we  are  apprehensive 
lest  such  things  should  happen  to  us.  Hence  we 
may  conclude  that  a  slight  evil  which  is  neither  sad 
nor  destructive,  and  which  we  perceive  in  others  but 
do  not  believe  to  be  in  ourselves,  is  the  primary 
cause  of  the  ludicrous.^  In  Maggi's  treatise,  De 
Ridiculis,  appended  to  his  commentary  on  the 
Poetics,  the  Aristotelian  conception  of  the  ridiculous 
is  accepted,  with  the  addition  of  the  element  of 
admiratio.  Maggi  insists  on  the  idea  of  suddenness 
or  novelty ;  for  we  do  not  laugh  at  painless  ugliness 
if  it  be  very  familiar  or  long  continued.^ 

According  to  Robortelli  (1548),  comedy,  like  all 
other  forms  of  poetry,  imitates  the  manners  and 
actions  of  men,  and  aims  at  producing  laughter  and 

1  Trissino,  ii.  127-130.  Trissino  seems  to  follow  Cicero,  De  Oral. 
ii.  58  sq.  It  is  to  these  Italian  discussions  of  the  ludicrous  that 
the  theory  of  laughter  formulated  by  Hobbes,  and  after  him  by 
Addison,  owes  its  origin.  For  Renaissance  discussions  of  wit 
and  humor  before  the  introduction  of  Aristotle's  Poetics,  cf.  the 
third  and  fourth  books  of  Fontano's  De  Sennone,  and  the  second 
book  of  Castiglione's  Cortigiano. 

8  Maggi,  p.  307.     Cf.  Hobbes,  Human  Nature,  1G50,  ix.  13. 


/ 


104  LITEKARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

light-iieartedness.  But  what  produces  laughter  ? 
The  evil  and  obscene  merely  disgust  good  men  ;  the 
sad  and  miserable  cause  pity  and  fear.  The  basis 
of  laughter  is  therefore  to  be  found  in  what  is  only 
slightly  mean  or  ugly  (subturjncuhcm).  The  object 
of  comedy,  according  to  the  consensus  of  Renais- 
sance opinion,  is  therefore  to  produce  laughter  for 
the  purpose  of  rendering  the  minor  vices  ridiculous. 
Muzio  (1551)  indeed  complains,  as  both  Sidney  and 
Ben  Jonson  do  later,  that  the  comic  writers  of  his 
day  were  more  intent  on  producing  laughter  than 
on  depicting  character  or  manners  :  — 

"Intenta  al  riso 
Tih  ch'  a  i  costumi." 

But  Minturno  points  out  that  comedy  is  not  to  be 
contemned  because  it  excites  laughter  ;  for  by  comic 
hilarity  the  spectators  are  kept  from  becoming 
buffoons  themselves,  and  by  the  ridiculous  light  in 
which  amours  are  placed,  are  made  to  avoid  such 
things  in  future.  Comedy  is  the  best  corrective 
of  men's  morals ;  it  is  indeed  what  Cicero  calls  it, 
imitatio  vitce,  speculurn  consuetucUnis,  imago  verita- 
tis.  This  phrase,  ascribed  by  Donatus  to  Cicero, 
runs  through  all  the  dramatic  discussions  of  the 
Renaissance,^  and  finds  its  echo  in  a  famous  pas- 
sage in  Hamlet.  Cervantes  cites  the  phrase  in  Don 
Quixote ;  ^  and  II  Lasca,  in  the  prologue  to  VArzi- 
goglio,  berates  the  comic  writers  of  his  day  after 
this  fashion :  "  They  take  no  account  of  the  ab- 
surdities, the  contradictions,  the  inequalities,  and 

1  Cf.  B.  Tasso,  ii.  515;  Robortelli,  p.  2;  etc. 
a  Don  Quix.  iv.  21. 


III.]  THE   THEORY   OF   THE   DRAMA  105 

the  discrepancies  of  their  pieces ;  for  they  do  not 
seem  to  know  that  comedy  should  be  truth's  image, 
the  ensample  of  manners,  and  the  mirror  of  life." 

This  is  exactly  what  Shakespeare  is  contending 
for  when  he  makes  Hamlet  caution  the  players  not 
to  "  o'erstep  the  modesty  of  nature ;  for  anything 
so  overdone  is  from  the  purpose  of  playing,  whose 
end,  both  at  the  first  and  now,  was  and  is,  to 
hold  as  'twere  the  mirror  up  to  nature ;  to  show 
virtue  her  own  feature,  scorn  her  own  image,  and 
the  very  age  and  body  of  the  time  his  form  and 
pressure."  ^ 

The  high  importance  which  Scaliger  (1561)  gives 
to  comedy,  and  in  fact  to  satiric  and  didactic  poetry 
in  general,  is  one  of  many  indications  of  the  incipi- 
ent formation  of  neo-classical  ideals  during  the 
Renaissance.  He  regards  as  absurd  the  statement 
which  he  conceives  Horace  to  have  made,  that 
comedy  is  not  really  poetry ;  on  the  coi^trary,  it  is 
the  true  form  of  poetry,  arid  the  first  and  highest 
of  all,  for  its  matter  is  entirely  invented  by  the 
poet.^  He  defines  comedy  as  a  dramatic  poem 
filled  with  intrigue  (iiegotiosum),  written  in  popular 
style,  and  ending  happily.^  The  characters  in  com- 
edy are  chiefly  old  men,  slaves,  courtesans,  all  in 
humble  station  or  from  small  villages.  The  action 
begins  rather  turbulently,  but  ends  happily,  and  the 


1  Hamlet,  iii.  2. 

2  Scaliger,  Poet.  i.  2.  Castiglione,  in  the  second  book  of  the 
Cortigiano,  says  that  the  comic  writer,  more  than  any  other, 
expresses  the  true  image  of  human  life. 

3  Poet.  i.  5. 


106     LITERARY  CRITICISM   IN   ITALY      [chap.   hi. 

style  is  neither  high  nor  low.  The  typical  themes 
of  comedy  are  "  sports,  banquets,  nuptials,  drunken 
carousals,  the  crafty  wiles  of  slaves,  and  the  decep- 
tion of  old  men."  ^ 

The  theory  of  comedy  in  sixteenth-century  Italy 
was  entirely  classical,  and  the  practice  of  the  time 
agrees  with  its  theory.  There  are  indeed  to  be 
heard  occasional  notes  of  dissatisfaction  and  revolt, 
especially  in  the  prologues  of  popular  plays.  II 
Lasca,  in  the  prologue  to  the  Strega,  defiantly  pro- 
tests against  the  inviolable  authority  of  Aristotle 
and  Horace,  and  in  the  prologue  to  his  Gelosia  re- 
serves the  right  to  copy  the  manners  of  his  own  time, 
and  not  those  of  Plautus  and  Terence.  Cecchi, 
Aretino,  Gelli,  and  other  comic  writers  give  expres- 
sion to  similar  sentiments.^  But  on  the  whole 
these  protests  availed  nothing.  The  authors  of 
comedy,  and  more  especially  the  literary  critics, 
were  guided  by  classical  practice  and  classical  the- 
ory. Dramatic  forms  like  the  improvised  commedia 
delV  arte  had  marked  influence  on  the  practice  of 
European  comedy  in  general,  especially  in  France, 
but  left  no  traces  of  their  influence  on  the  literary 
criticism  of  the  Italian  Renaissance. 

^Poet.  iii.  96. 

2  Symouds,  Ren.  in  Italy,  v.  124  s^.,  533  sq.  For  Castelvetro's 
theory  of  comedy,  see  A.  Fusco,  La  Poetica  di  Lodovico 
Castelvetro,  Naples,  1904,  p.  228  xq.  Ben  Jonson  derived  his 
theory  of  laughter  in  comedy  from  Daniel  Heinsius;  c/.  my 
article  in  Modern  Philology,  1905,  ii.  451  sq. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   THEORY   OF   EPIC    POETRY 

Epic  poetry  was  held  in  the  highest  esteem  dur- 
ing the  Renaissance  and  indeed  throughout  the 
period  of  classicism.  It  was  regarded  by  Vida  as 
the  highest  form  of  poetry/  and  a  century  later, 
despite  the  success  of  tragedy  in  France,  Rapin 
still  held  the  same  opinion.^  The  reverence  for 
the  epic  throughout  the  Renaissance  may  be 
ascribed  in  part  to  the  mediseval  veneration  of 
Virgil  as  a  poet,  and  his  popular  apotheosis"  as 
prophet  and  magician,  and  also  in  part  to  the 
decay  into  which  dramatic  literature  had  fallen 
during  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  hands  of  the  wan- 
dering players,  the  histriones  and  the  vagantes. 
Aristotle  ^  indeed  had  regarded  tragedy  as  the  high- 
est form  of  poetry ;  and  as  a  result,  the  traditional 
reverence  for  Virgil  and  Homer,  and  the  Renais- 
sance subservience  to  Aristotle,  were  distinctly  at 
variance.  Trissino  (1561)  paraphrases  Aristotle's 
argument  in  favor  of  tragedy,  but  points  out,  not- 
withstanding this,  that  the  whole  world  is  unani- 
mous in  considering  Virgil  and  Homer  greater  than 
any  tragic  poet  before  or  after  them.^     Placed  in 

1  Pope,  i.  133.  8  Poet.  xxvi. 

2  Rapin,  1674,  ii.  2.  ^  Trissino,  ii.  118  sq. 

107 


108  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

this  quandary,  lie  concludes  by  leaving  the  reader 
to  judge  for  himself  whether  epic  or  tragedy  be  the 
nobler  form. 


I.    The  Theory  of  the  Epic  Poem 

Vida's  Ars  Poetica,  written  before  1520,  although 
no  edition  prior  to  that  of  1527  is  extant,  is  the 
earliest  example  in  modern  times  of  that  class 
of  critical  poems  to  which  belong  Horace's  Ars 
Poetica,  Boileau's  Art  Poetique,  and  Pope's  Essay 
on  Criticism.  Vida's  poem  is  entirely  based  on  that 
of  Horace;  but  he  substitutes  epic  for  Horace's 
dramatic  studies,  and  employs  the  ^neid  as  the 
model  of  an  epic  poem.  The  incompleteness  of  the 
treatment  accorded  to  epic  poetry  in  Aristotle's 
Poetics  led  the  Renaissance  to  deduce  the  laws  of 
heroic  poetry  and  of  poetic  artifice  in  general  from 
the  practice  of  Virgil ;  and  it  is  to  this  point  of 
view  that  the  critical  works  on  the  uEneid  by  Eegolo 
(1563),  Maranta  (1564),  and  Toscanella  (1666)  owe 
their  origin.  The  obvious  and  even  accidental 
qualities  of  Virgil's  poem  are  enunciated  by  Vida 
as  fundamental  laws  of  epic  poetry.  The  precepts 
thus  given  are  purely  rhetorical  and  pedagogic  in 
character,  and  deal  almost  exclusively  with  ques- 
tions of  poetic  invention,  disposition,  polish,  and 
style.  Beyond  this  Vida  does  not  attempt  to  go. 
There  is  in  his  poem  no  definition  of  the  epic,  no 
theory  of  its  function,  no  analysis  of  the  essentials 
of  narrative  structure.  In  fact,  no  theory  of  poetry 
in  any  real  sense  is  to  be  found  in  Vida's  treatise. 


IV.]  THE   THEORY   OF   EPIC   POETRY  109 

Danielle  (1536)  deals  only  very  cursorily  with 
epic  poetry,  but  his  definition  of  it  strikes  the  key- 
note of  the  Renaissance  conception.  Heroic  poetry 
is  for  him  an  imitation  of  the  illustrious  deeds  of 
emperors  and  other  men  magnanimous  and  valorous 
in  arms,^  —  a  conception  that  goes  back  to  Horace's 

"Res  gestae  regumque  ducumque  et  tristia  bella."  ^ 

Trissino  (1563)  first  introduced  the  Aristotelian 
theory  of  the  epic  into  modern  literary  criticism ; 
and  the  sixth  section  of  his  Poetica  is  given  up 
almost  exclusively  to  the  treatment  of  heroic  poetry. 
The  epic  agrees  with  tragedy  in  dealing  with  illus- 
trious men  and  illustrious  actions.  Like  tragedy  it 
must  have  a  single  action,  but  it  differs  from  trag- 
edy in  not  having  the  time  of  the  action  limited 
or  determined.  While  unity  of  action  is  essential 
to  the  epic,  and  is  indeed  what  distinguishes  it  from 
narrative  poems  that  are  not  really  epics,  the  Re- 
naissance conceived  of  vastness  of  design  and  large- 
ness of  detail  as  necessary  to  the  grandiose  character 
of  the  epic  poem.'    Thus  Muzio  says :  — 

"  n  poema  sovrano  6  una  pittura 
De  1'  universe,  e  per6  in  s6  comprende 
Ogni  stilo,  ogni  forma,  ogni  ritratto." 

Trissino  regards  versi  sciolti  as  the  proper  metre 
for  an  heroic  poem,  since  the  stanzaic  form  impedes 
the  continuity  of  the  narrative.  In  this  point  he 
finds  fault  with  Boccaccio,  Boiardo,  and  Ariosto, 
whose  romantic  poems,  moreover,  he  does  not  regard 
as  epics,  because  they  do  not  obey  Aristotle's  invio- 

1  Daniello,  p.  34.       2  j^rs  Poet.  73.        3  Trissino,  ii.  112  sq. 


110  LITERARY   CRITICISM  IN  ITALY       [chap. 

lable  law  of  the  single  action.  He  also  finds  fault 
with  the  romantic  poets  for  describing  the  improb- 
able, since  Aristotle  expressly  prefers  an  impossi- 
ble probability  to  an  improbable  possibility. 

Minturno's  definition  of  epic  poetry  is  merely  a 
modification  or  paraphrase  of  Aristotle's  definition 
of  tragedy.  Epic  poetry  is  an  imitation  of  a  grave 
and  noble  deed,  perfect,  complete,  and  of  proper 
magnitude,  with  embellished  language,  but  without 
music  or  dancing;  at  times  simply  narrating  and 
at  other  times  introducing  persons  in  words  and 
actions ;  in  order  that,  through  pity  and  fear  of  the 
things  imitated,  such  passions  may  be  purged  from 
the  mind  with  both  pleasure  and  profit.^  Here 
Minturno,  like  Giraldi  Cintio,  ascribes  to  epic 
poetry  the  same  purgation  of  pity  and  fear  effected 
by  tragedy.  Epic  poetry  he  rates  above  tragedy, 
since  the  epic  poet,  more  than  any  other,  arouses 
that  admiration  of  great  heroes  which  it  is  the  pe- 
culiar function  of  the  poet  to  excite,  and  therefore 
attains  the  end  of  poetry  more  completely  than  any 
other  poet.  This,  however,  is  true  only  in  the  high- 
est form  of  narrative  poetry ;  for  Minturno  distin- 
guishes three  classes  of  narrative  poets,  the  lowest, 
or  hucolici,  the  mediocre,  or  epici,  who  have  nothing 
beyond  verse,  and  the  highest,  or  heroici,  who  imi- 
tate the  life  of  a  single  hero  in  noble  verse.'^  Min- 
turno insists  fundamentally  on  the  unity  of  the 
epic  action ;  and  directly  against  Aristotle's  state- 
ment, as  we  have  seen,  he  restricts  the  duration  of 
the  action  to  one  year.  The  license  and  prolixity 
1  Arte  Poetica,  p.  9.  2  £)e  poeta,  pp.  105,  106. 


IV.]  THE   THEORY   OF   EPIC   POETRY  Hi 

of  the  rornanzi  led  the  defenders  of  the  classical 
epic  to  this  extreme  of  rigid  circumspection.  Ac- 
cording to  Scaliger,  the  epic,  which  is  the  norm  by 
which  all  other  poems  may  be  judged  and  the  chief 
of  all  poems,  describes  herouin  genus,  vita,  gesta} 
This  is  the  Horatian  conception  of  the  epic,  and 
there  is  in  Scaliger  little  or  no  trace  of  the  Aristo- 
telian doctrine.  He  also  follows  Horace  closely  in 
forbidding  the  narrative  poet  to  begin  his  poem 
from  the  very  beginning  of  his  story  {ah  ovo),  and 
in  various  other  details. 

Castelvetro  (1570)  differs  from  Aristotle  in  regard 
to  the  unity  of  the  epic  fable,  on  the  ground  that 
poetry  is  merely  imaginative  history,  and  can 
therefore  do  anything  that  history  can  do.  Poetry 
follows  the  footsteps  of  history,  differing  merely  in 
that  history  narrates  what  has  happened,  while 
poetry  narrates  what  has  never  happened  but  yet 
may  possibly  happen ;  and  therefore,  since  history 
recounts  the  whole  life  of  a  single  hero,  without 
regard  to  its  unity,  there  is  no  reason  why  poetry 
should  not  do  likewise.  The  epic  may  in  fact  deal 
with  many  actions  of  one  person,  one  action  of  a 
whole  race,  or  many  actions  of  many  people ;  it 
need  not  necessarily  deal  with  one  action  of  one 
person,  as  Aristotle  enjoins,  but  if  it  does  so  it  is 
simply  to  show  the  ingenuity  and  excellence  of  the 
poet.^ 

1  Poet.  iii.  95. 

2  Castelvetro,  Poetica,  p.  178  $g. 


112  LITERARY   CRITICISM  IN  ITALY      [chap. 

H.   Epic  and  Romance 

This  discussion  of  epic  unity  leads  to  one  of  the 
most  important  critical  questions  of  the  sixteenth 
century, — the  question  of  the  unity  of  romance. 
Ariosto's  Orlando  Furioso  and  Boiardo's  Orlando 
Innamorato  were  written  before  the  Aristotelian 
canons  had  become  a  part  of  the  critical  literature 
of  Italy.  When  it  became  clear  that  these  poems 
diverged  from  the  fundamental  requirements  of  the 
epic  as  expounded  in  the  Poetics,  Trissino  set  out 
to  compose  an  heroic  poem  which  would  be  in  per- 
fect accord  with  the  precepts  of  Aristotle.  His 
Italia  Liherata,  which  was  completed  by  1548,  was 
the  result  of  twenty  years  of  study,  and  it  is  the 
first  modern  epic  in  the  strict  Aristotelian  sense. 
With  Aristotle  as  his  guide,  and  Homer  as  his 
model,  he  had  studiously  and  mechanically  con- 
structed an  epic  of  a  single  action;  and  in  the 
dedication  of  his  poem  to  the  Emperor  Charles  V. 
he  charges  all  poems  which  violate  this  primary 
law  of  the  single  action  with  being  merely  bastard 
forms.  The  romanzi,  and  among  them  the  Orlando 
Furioso,  in  seemingly  disregarding  this  funda- 
mental requirement,  came  under  Trissino's  censure ; 
and  this  started  a  controversy  which  was  not  to  end 
until  the  commencement  of  the  next  century,  and 
in  a  certain  sense  may  be  said  to  remain  undecided 
even  to  this  day. 

The  first  to  take  up  the  cudgels  in  defence  of  the 
writers  of  the  romanzi  was  Giraldi  Cintio,  who  in 
his  youth  had  known  Ariosto  personally,  and  who 


IV.]  THE   THEORY   OF   EPIC   POETRY  113 

wrote  his  Discorso  intorno  al  comporre  dei  Romanzi, 
in  April,  1549.  The  grounds  of  his  defence  are 
twofold.  In  the  first  place,  Giraldi  maintains  that 
the  romance  is  a  poetic  form  of  which  Aristotle  did 
not  know,  and  to  which  his  rules  therefore  do  not 
apply ;  and  in  the  second  place,  Tuscan  literature, 
differing  as  it  does  from  the  literature  of  Greece  in 
language,  in  spirit,  and  in  religious  feeling,  need 
not  and  indeed  ought  not  to  follow  the  rules  of 
Greek  literature,  but  rather  the  laws  of  its  own 
development  and  its  own  traditions.  With  Ariosto 
and  Boiardo  as  models,  Giraldi  sets  out  to  formu- 
late the  laws  of  the  romanzi.  The  romanzi  aim  at 
imitating  illustrious  actions  in  verse,  with  the  pur- 
pose of  teaching  good  morals  and  honest  living,  since 
this  ought  to  be  the  aim  of  every  poet,  as  Giraldi 
conceives  Aristotle  himself  to  have  said.-^  All 
heroic  poetry  is  an  imitation  of  illustrious  actions, 
but  Giraldi,  like  Castelvetro  twenty  years  later, 
recognizes  several  distinct  forms  of  heroic  poetry, 
according  as  to  whether  it  imitates  one  action  of 
one  man,  many  actions  of  many  men,  or  many 
actions  of  one  man.  The  first  of  these  is  the  epic 
poem,  the  rules  of  which  are  given  in  Aristotle's 
Poetics.  The  second  is  the  romantic  poem,  after 
the  manner  of  Boiardo  and  Ariosto.  The  third  is 
the  biographical  poem,  after  the  manner  of  the 
Theseid  and  similar  works  dealing  with  the  whole 
life  of  a  single  hero. 

These  forms  are  therefore  to  be  regarded  as  three 
distinct  and  legitimate  species  of  heroic  poetry,  the 

1  Giraldi  Cintio,  i.  11,  64, 

I 


114  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

first  of  them  being  an  epic  poem  in  the  strict  Aris- 
totelian sense,  and  the  two  others  coming  under  the 
general  head  of  romanzi.  Of  the  two  forms  of 
romanzi,  the  biographical  deals  preferably  with  an 
historical  subject,  whereas  the  noblest  writers  of 
the  more  purely  romantic  form,  dealing  with  many 
actions  of  many  men,  have  invented  their  subject- 
matter.  Horace  says  that  an  heroic  poem  should 
not  commence  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  hero's 
life ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  understand,  says  Giraldi, 
why  the  whole  life  of  a  distinguished  man,  wliich 
gives  us  so  great  and  refined  a  pleasure  in  the  works 
of  Plutarch  and  other  biographers,  should  not  please 
us  all  the  more  when  described  in  beautiful  verse 
by  a  good  poet.-^  Accordingly,  the  poet  who  is 
composing  an  epic  in  the  strict  sense  should,  in 
handling  the  events  of  his  narrative,  plunge  im- 
mediately in  medias  res.  The  poet  dealing  with 
many  actions  of  many  men  should  begin  with  the 
most  important  event,  and  the  one  wpon  which  all 
the  others  may  be  said  to  hinge ;  whereas  the  poet 
describing  the  life  of  a  single  hero  should  begin  at 
the  very  beginning,  if  the  hero  spent  a  really  heroic 
youth,  as  Hercules  for  example  did.  The  poem 
dealing  with  the  life  of  a  hero  is  thus  a  separate 
genre,  and  one  for  which  Aristotle  does  not  attempt 
to  lay  down  any  laws.  Giraldi  even  goes  so  far  as 
to  say  that  Aristotle  -  censured  those  who  write  the 
life  of  Theseus  or  Hercules  in  a  single  poem,  not 
because  they  dealt  with  many  actions  of  one  man, 
but  because  they  treated  such  a  poem  in  exactly 
1  Giraldi  Cintio,  i.  24.  '■»  Poet.  viii.  2. 


IV.]  THE  THEORY  OF  EPIC  POETRY  115 

the  same  manner  as  those  who  dealt  "with  a  single 
action  of  a  single  hero,  —  an  assertion  which  is  of 
course  utterly  absurd.  Giraldi  then  proceeds  to 
deal  in  detail  with  the  disposition  and  composition 
of  the  romanzi,  which  he  rates  above  the  classical 
epics  in  the  efficacy  of  etliical  teaching.  It  is  the 
office  of  the  poet  to  praise  virtuous  actions  and  to 
condemn  vicious  actions ;  and  in  this  the  writers  of 
the  romanzi  are  far  superior  to  the  writers  of  the 
ancient  heroic  poems. ^ 

Giraldi's  discourse  on  the  romanzi  gave  rise  to  a 
curious  dispute  with  his  own  pupil,  Giambattista 
Pigna,  who  published  a  similar  work,  entitled  / 
Romanzi,  in  the  same  year  (1554).  Pigna  asserted 
that  he  had  suggested  to  Giraldi  the  main  argument 
of  the  discourse,  and  that  Giraldi  had  adopted  it  as 
his  own.  Without  entering  into  the  details  of  this 
controversy,  it  would  seem  that  the  priority  of 
Giraldi  cannot  fairly  be  contested.^  At  all  events, 
there  is  a  very  great  resemblance  between  the  works 
of  Giraldi  and  Pigna.  Pigna's  treatise,  however, 
is  more  detailed  than  Giraldi's.  In  the  first  book, 
Pigna  deals  with  the  general  subject  of  the  romanzi; 
in  the  second  he  gives  a  life  of  Ariosto,  and  dis- 
cusses the  Furioso,  point  by  point ;  in  the  third  he 
demonstrates  the  good  taste  and  critical  acumen  of 
Ariosto  by  comparing  the  first  version  of  the  Furi- 
oso with  the  completed  and  perfected  copy.^     Both 

1  Giraldi,  i.  66  sg. 

2  Cf.  Tiraboschi,  vii.  947  sq.,  and  Giraldi,  ii.  153  sq.    Pigna'a 
own  words  are  cited  in  Giraldi,  i.  p.  xxiii. 

3Canello,  p.  ZQQsq. 


1 

116  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

Pigna  and  Giraldi  consider  the  romanzi  to  consti- 
tute a  new  genre,  unknown  to  the  ancients,  and 
therefore  not  subject  to  Aristotle's  rules.  Giraldi's 
sympathies  were  in  favor  of  the  biographical  form 
of  the  romanzi,  and  his  poem,  the  Ercole  (1557), 
recounts  the  whole  life  of  a  single  hero.  Pigna, 
who  keeps  closer  to  the  tradition  of  Ariosto,  re- 
gards the  biographical  form  as  not  proper  to  poetry, 
because  too  much  like  history. 

These  arguments,  presented  by  Giraldi  and  Pigna, 
were  answered  by.  Speroni,  Minturno,  and  others. 
Speroni  pointed  out  that  while  it  is  not  necessary 
for  the  romantic  poets  to  follow  the  rules  prescribed 
by  the  ancients,  they  cannot  disobey  the  funda- 
mental laws  of  poetry.  "The  romanzi,''^  says 
Speroni,  "are  epics,  which  are  poems,  or  they  are 
histories  in  verse,  and  not  poems."  ^  That  is,  how 
does  a  poem  differ  from  a  well-written  historical 
narrative,  if  the  former  be  without  organic  unity  ?  ^ 
As  to  the  whole  discussion,  it  may  be  said  here, 
without  attempting  to  pass  judgment  on  Ariosto,  or 
any  other  writer  of  romanzi,  that  unity  of  some 
sort  every  true  poem  must  necessarily  have ;  and, 
flawless  as  the  Orlando  Furioso  is  in  its  details,  the 
unity  of  the  poem  certainly  has  not  the  obviousness 
of  perfect,  and  especially  classical,  art.  A  work  of 
art  without  organic  unity  may  be  compared  with 
an  unsymmetrical  circle ;  and,  while  the  Furioso  is 
not  to  be  judged  by  any  arbitrary  or  mechanical 
rules  of  unity,  yet  if  it  has  not  that  internal  unity 
which  transcends  all  mere  external  form,  it  may  be 

1  Speroui,  v.  521.  2  (jf,  Miuturuo,  De  Poeta,  p.  151. 


IV.]  THE   THEORY   OF   EPIC   POETRY  117 

considered,  as  a  work  of  art,  hardly  less  than  a 
failure ;  and  the  farther  it  is  removed  from  per- 
fect unity,  the  more  imperfect  is  the  art.  "  Poetry 
adapts  itself  to  its  times,  but  cannot  depart  from  its 
own  fundamental  laws."  ^ 

Minturno's  answer  to  the  defenders  of  the  romanzi 
is  more  detailed  and  explicit  than  Speroni's,  and  it 
is  of  considerable  importance  because  of  its  influ- 
ence on  Torquato  Tasso's  conception  of  epic  poetry. 
Minturno  does  not  deny  —  and  in  this  his  point  of 
view  is  identical  with  Tasso's  —  that  it  is  possible 
to  employ  the  matter  of  the  romanzi  in  the  composi- 
tion of  a  perfect  poem.  The  actions  they  describe 
are  great  and  illustrious,  their  knights  and  ladies 
are  noble  and  illustrious,  too,  and  they  contain  in  a 
most  excellent  manner  that  element  of  the  marvel- 
lous which  is  so  important  an  element  in  the  epic 
action.  It  is  the  structure  of  the  romanzi  with 
which  Minturno  finds  fault.  They  lack  the  first 
essential  of  every  form  of  poetry,  —  unity.  In 
fact,  they  are  little  more  than  versified  history  or 
legend;  and,  while  expressing  admiration  for  the 
genius  of  Ariosto,  Minturno  cannot  but  regret  that 
he  so  far  yielded  to  the  popular  taste  of  his  time  as 
to  employ  the  method  of  the  romanzi.  He  approves 
of  the  suggestion  of  Bembo,  who  had  tried  to  per- 
suade Ariosto  to  write  an  epic  instead  of  a  romantic 
poem,- just  as  later,  and  for  similar  reasdns,  Gabriel 
Harvey  attempted  to  dissuade  Spenser  from  con- 

1  Minturno,  Arte  Poetica,  p.  31.  For  various  opinions  on  the 
unity  of  the  Orlando  Furioso,  cf.  Canello,  p.  ICfi,  and  Foffano, 
p.  59  sq.  2  _4r(e  Poetica,  p.  31. 


118  LITERAKY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY      [chap. 

tinuing  the  Faerie  Queene.  Minturno  denies  that 
the  Tuscan  tongue  is  not  well  adapted  to  the  com- 
position of  heroic  poetry ;  on  the  contrary,  there  is 
no  form  of  poetry  to  which  it  is  not  admirably 
fitted.  He  denies  that  the  romantic  poem  can  be 
distinguished  from  the  epic  on  the  ground  that  the 
actions  of  knights-errant  require  a  different  and 
broader  form  of  narrative  than  do  those  of  the 
classical  heroes.  The  celestial  and  infernal  gods 
and  demi-gods  of  the  ancients  correspond  with  the 
angels,  saints,  anchorites,  and  the  one  God  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  the  ancient  sibyls,  oracles,  enchantresses, 
and  divine  messengers  correspond  with  the  modern 
necromancers,  fates,  magicians,  and  celestial  angels. 
To  the  claim  of  the  romantic  poets  that  their  poems 
approximate  closer  to  that  magnitude  which  Aris- 
totle enjoins  as  necessary  for  all  poetry,  Minturno 
answers  that  magnitude  is  of  no  avail  without  pro- 
portion ;  there  is  no  beauty  in  the  giant  whose  limbs 
and  frame  are  distorted.  Finally,  the  romanzi  are 
said  to  be  a  new  form  of  poetry  unknown  to  Aris- 
totle and  Horace,  and  hence  not  amenable  to  their 
laws.  But  time,  says  Minturno,  cannot  change 
the  truth ;  in  every  age  a  poem  must  have  unity, 
proportion,  magnitude.  Everything  in  nature  is 
governed  by  some  specific  law  which  directs  its 
operation ;  and  as  it  is  in  nature  so  it  is  in  art,  for 
art  tries  to  imitate  nature,  and  the  nearer  it  ap- 
proaches nature  in  her  essential  laws,  the  better  it 
does  its  work.  In  other  words,  as  has  already  been 
pointed  out,  poetry  adapts  itself  to  its  times,  but 
cannot  depart  from  its  own  laws. 


IV.]  THE   THEORY  OF   EPIC  POETRY  119 

Bernardo  Tasso,  the  father  of  Torquato,  had  origi- 
nally been  one  of  the  defenders  of  the  classical 
epic ;  but  he  seems  to  have  been  converted  to  the 
opposite  view  by  Giraldi  Cintio,  and  in  his  poem  of 
the  Amadigi  he  follows  romantic  models.  His  son 
Torquato,  in  his  Discorsi  delV  Arte  Poetica,  origi- 
nally written  one  or  two  years  after  the  appearance 
of  Minturno's  Arte  Poetica,  although  not  published 
until  1587,  was  the  first  to  attempt  a  reconciliation 
of  the  epic  and  romantic  forms;  and  he  may  be 
said  to  have  effected  a  solution  of  the  problem  by 
the  formulation  of  the  theory  of  a  narrative  poem 
which  would  have  the  romantic  subject-matter,  with 
its  delightful  variety,  and  the  epic  form,  with  its 
essential  unity.  The  question  at  issue,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  that  of  unity ;  that  is,  does  the  heroic  poem 
need  unity  ?  Tasso  denies  that  there  is  any  dif- 
ference between  the  epic  poem  and  the  romantic 
poem  as  poems.  The  reason  why  the  latter  is  more 
pleasing,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  of  the  greater 
delightfulness  of  the  themes  treated.^  Variety  in 
itself  may  be  pleasing,  for  even  a  variety  of  disagree- 
able things  may  possibly  please.  But  the  perfect 
and  at  the  same  time  most  pleasing  form  of  heroic 
poem  would  deal  with  the  chivalrous  themes  of  the 
romanzi,  yet  would  possess  that  unity  of  structure 
which,  according  to  the  precepts  of  Aristotle  and 
the  practice  of  Homer  and  Virgil,  is  essential  to 
every  epic.  There  are  two  sorts  of  unity  possible 
in  art  as  in  nature,  —  the  simple  unity  of  a  chemi- 
cal element,  and  the  complex  unity  of  an  organism 
1  T.  Tasso,  xii.  219  sq. 


120  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

like  an  animal  or  plant,  —  and  of  these  the  latter 
is  the  sort  of  unity  that  the  heroic  poet  should  aim 
at.^  Capriano  (1555)  had  referred  to  this  same  dis- 
tinction, when  he  pointed  out  that  poetry  ought  not 
to  be  the  imitation  of  a  single  act,  such  as  a  single 
act  of  weeping  in  the  elegy,  or  a  single  act  of  pas- 
toral life  in  the  eclogue,  for  such  a  sporadic  imita- 
tion is  to  be  compared  to  a  picture  of  a  single  hand 
without  the  rest  of  the  body;  on  the  contrary, 
poetry  ought  to  be  the  representation  of  a  number 
of  attendant  or  dependent  acts,  leading  from  a 
given  beginning  to  a  suitable  end.^ 

Having  settled  the  general  fact  that  the  attrac- 
tive themes  of  the  romanzi  should  be  employed  in  a 
perfect  heroic  poem,  we  may  inquire  what  particular 
themes  are  most  fitted  to  the  epic,  and  what  must 
be  the  essential  qualities  of  the  epic  material.^  In 
the  first  place,  the  subject  of  the  heroic  poem  must 
be  historical,  for  it  is  not  probable  that  illustrious 
actions  such  as  are  dealt  with  in  the  epic  should  be 
unknown  to  history.  The  authority  of  liistory  gains 
for  the  poet  that  semblance  of  truth  necessary  to 
deceive  the  Teader  and  make  him  believe  that  what 
the  poet  writes  is  true.  Secondly,  the  heroic  poem, 
according  to  Tasso,  must  deal  with  the  history,  not 
of  a  false  religion,  but  of  the  true  one,  Christianity. 
The  religion  of  the  pagans  is  absolutely  unfit  for 
epic  material ;  for  if  the  pagan  deities  are  not  in- 
troduced, the  poem  will  lack  the  element  of  the 
marvellous,  and  if  they  are  introduced  it  will  lack 

1  T.  Tasso,  xii.  234.  »  T.  Tasso,  xii.  199  sq. 

2  Delia  Vera  Poetica,  cap.  iil 


1 


IV.]  THE   THEORY  OF   EPIC   POETRY  121 

the  element  of  probability.  Both  the  marvellous 
and  the  verisimile  must  exist  together  in  a  perfect 
epic,  and  difficult  as  the  task  may  seem,  they  must 
be  reconciled.  Another  reason  why  paganism  is 
unfit  for  the  epic  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
perfect  knight  must  have  piety  as  well  as  other 
virtues.  In  the  third  place,  the  poem  must  not 
deal  with  themes  connected  with  the  articles  of 
Christian  faith,  for  such  themes  would  be  unalter- 
able, and  would  allow  no  scope  to  the  free  play  of 
the  poet's  inventive  fancy.  Fourthly,  the  material 
must  be  neither  too  ancient  nor  too  modern,  for  the 
latter  is  too  well  known  to  admit  of  fanciful  changes 
with  probability,  and  the  former  not  only  lacks 
interest  but  requires  the  introduction  of  strange 
and  alien  manners  and  customs.  The  times  of 
Charlemagne  and  Arthur  are  accordingly  best  fitted 
for  heroic  treatment.  Finally,  the  events  them- 
selves must  possess  nobility  and  grandeur.  Hence 
an  epic  should  be  a  story  derived  from  some  event 
in  the  history  of  Christian  peoples,  intrinsically 
noble  and  illustrious,  but  not  of  so  sacred  a  char- 
acter as  to  be  fixed  and  immutable,  and  neither 
contemporary  nor  very  remote.  By  the  selection 
of  such  material  the  poem  gains  the  authority  of 
history,  the  truth  of  religion,  the  license  of  fiction, 
the  proper  atmosphere  in  point  of  time,  and  the 
grandeur  of  the  events  themselves.^ 

Aristotle  says  that  both  epic  and  tragedy  deal 
with  illustrious  actions.     Tasso  points  out  that  if 
the  actions  of  tragedy  and  of  epic  poetry  were  both 
1 T.  Tasso,  xii.  208. 


122  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

illustrious  in  the  same  way,  they  would  both  pro- 
duce the  same  results ;  but  tragic  actions  move 
horror  and  compassion,  while  epic  actions  as  a  rule 
do  not  and  need  not  arouse  these  emotions.  The 
tragic  action  consists  in  the  unexpected  change  of 
fortune,  and  in  the  grandeur  of  the  events  carrying 
with  them  horror  and  pity ;  but  the  epic  action  is 
founded  upon  undertakings  of  lofty  martial  virtue, 
upon  deeds  of  courtesy,  piety,  generosity,  none  of 
which  is  proper  to  tragedy.  Hence  the  characters 
in  epic  poetry  and  in  tragedy,  though  both  of  the 
same  regal  and  supreme  rank,  differ  in  that  the 
tragic  hero  is  neither  perfectly  good  nor  entirely 
bad,  as  Aristotle  says,  while  the  epic  hero  must 
have  the  very  height  of  virtue,  such  as  ^neas,  the 
type  of  piety,  Amadis,  the  type  of  loyalty,  Achilles, 
of  martial  virtue,  and  Ulysses,  of  prudence. 

Having  formulated  these  theories  of  heroic  poetry 
in  his  youth,  Tasso  set  out  to  carry  them  into  prac- 
tice, and  his  famous  Gerusalemme  Liherata  was  the 
result.  This  poem,  almost  immediately  after  its 
publication,  started  a  violent  controversy,  which 
raged  for  many  years,  and  which  may  be  regarded 
as  the  legitimate  outcome  of  the  earlier  dispute  in 
connection  with  the  romanzi}  The  Gerusalemme 
was  in  fact  the  centre  of  critical  activity  during  the 
latter  part  of  the  century.  Shortly  after  its  publi- 
cation, Camillo  Pellegrino  published  a  dialogue,  en- 

1  Accounts  of  this  famous  controversy  will  be  found  in  Tira- 
boschi,  Canello,  Serassi,  etc. ;  but  the  latest  and  most  complete 
is  that  given  in  tlie  twentieth  chapter  of  Solerti's  monumental 
Vita  di  Torquato  Tasso,  Torino,  1895. 


IV.]  THE   THEORY   OF   EPIC   POETRY  123 

titled  11  Carqffa  (1583),  in  which  the  Gerusalemme  is 
compared  with  the  Orlando  Furioso,  much  to  the 
advantage  of  the  former.  Pellegrino  finds  fault 
with  Ariosto  on  account  of  the  lack  of  unity  of  his 
poem,  the  immoral  manners  imitated,  and  various 
imperfections  of  style  and  language ;  and  in  all  of 
these  things,  unity,  morality,  and  style,  he  finds 
Tasso's  poem  perfect.  This  was  naturally  the 
signal  for  a  heated  and  long-continued  controversy. 
The  Accademia  della  Crusca  had  been  founded  at 
Florence,  in  1582,  and  it  seems  that  the  members  of 
the  new  society  felt  hurt  at  some  sarcastic  remarks 
regarding  Florence  in  one  of  Tasso's  dialogues. 
Accordingly,  the  head  of  the  academy,  Lionardo 
Salviati,  in  a  dialogue  entitled  Z'  Infarinato,  wrote 
an  ardent  defence  of  Ariosto;  and  an  acrid  and 
undignified  dispute  between  Tasso  and  Salviati 
was  begun.^  Tasso  answered  the  Accademia  della 
Crusca  in  his  Apologia;  and  at  the  beginning  of  the 
next  century,  Paolo  Beni,  the  commentator  on  Aris- 
totle's Poetics,  published  his  Comparazione  di 
Omero,  Virgilio,  e  Torquato,  in  which  Tasso  is  rated 
above  Homer,  Virgil,  and  Ariosto,  not  only  in 
dignity,  in  beauty  of  style,  and  in  unity  of  fable, 
but  in  every  other  quality  that  may  be  said  to  con- 
stitute perfection  in  poetry.  Before  dismissing 
this  whole  matter,  it  should  be  pointed  out  that  the 
defenders  of  Ariosto  had  absolutely  abandoned 
the  position  of  Giraldi  and  Pigna,  that  the  romanzi 

1  Nearly  all  the  important  documents  of  the  Tasso  contro- 
versy are  reprinted  in  Rosini's  edition  of  Tasso,  Opere,  vols, 
xviii.-xxiii. 


124        LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY     [chap.  iv. 

constitute  a  geni'e  by  themselves,  and  are  therefore 
not  subject  to  Aristotle's  law  of  unity.  The  ques- 
tion as  Giraldi  had  stated  it  was  this :  Does  every 
.poem  need  to  have  unity?  The  question  as  dis- 
cussed in  the  Tasso  controversy  had  changed  to 
this  form :  What  is  unity  ?  It  was  taken  for 
granted  by  both  sides  in  the  controversy  that  every 
poem  must  have  organic  unity ;  and  the  authority 
of  Aristotle,  in  epic  as  in  dramatic  poetry,  was 
henceforth  supreme.  It  was  to  the  authority  of 
Aristotle  that  Tasso's  opponents  appealed ;  and 
Salviati,  merely  for  the  purpose  of  undermining 
Tasso's  pretensions,  wrote  an  extended  commentary 
on  the  Poetics,  which  still  lies  in  Ms.  at  Florence, 
and  which  has  been  made  use  of  in  the  present 
essay  .^ 

1  The  question  of  unity  was  also  raised  in  another  controversy 
of  the  second  half  of  the  sixteenth  century.  A  passage  in 
Varchi's  Ercolano  (1570),  rating  Dante  above  Homer,  started 
a  controversy  on  the  Divine  Comedy.  The  most  important  out- 
come of  this  dispute  was  Mazzoni's  Difesa  di  Dante  (1573) ,  in 
which  a  more  or  less  novel  theory  of  poetry  is  expounded  in 
order  to  defend  the  great  Tuscan  poet. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    GROWTH    OF    THE    CLASSIC    SPIRIT    IK    ITALIAN 
CRITICISM 

The  growth  of  classicism  in  Renaissance  criti- 
cism was  due  to  three  causes,  —  humanism,  or  the 
imitation  of  the  classics,  Aristotelianism,  or  the 
influence  of  Aristotle's  Poetics,  and  rationalism,  or 
the  authority  of  the  reason,  the  result  of  the  growth 
of  the  modern  spirit  in  the  arts  and  sciences.  These 
three  causes  are  at  the  bottom  of  Italian  classicism, 
as  well  as  of  French  classicism  during  the  seven- 
teenth century. 

I.   Humanism 

The  progress  of  humanism  may  be  distinguished 
by  an  arbitrary  but  more  or  less  practical  division 
into  four  periods.  The  first  period  was  character- 
ized by  the  discovery  and  accumulation  of  classical 
literature,  and  the  second  period  was  given  up  to 
the  arrangement  and  translation  of  the  works  thus 
discovered.  The  third  period  is  marked  by  the 
formation  of  academies,  in  which  the  classics  were 
studied  and  humanized,  and  which  as  a  result  pro- 
duced a  special  cult  of  learning.  The  fourth  and 
last  period  is  marked  by  the  decline  of  pure  erudi- 
126 


126  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

tion,  and  the  beginning  of  aesthetic  and  stylistic 
scholarship.^  The  practical  result  of  the  revival  of 
learning  and  the  progress  of  humanism  was  thus  the 
study  and  imitation  of  the  classics.  To  this  imita- 
tion of  classical  literature  all  that  humanism  gave  to 
the  modern  world  may  be  ultimately  traced.  The 
problem  before  us,  then,  is  this :  What  was  the 
result  of  this  imitation  of  the  classics,  in  so  far  as  it 
regards  the  literary  criticism  of  the  Renaissance  ? 

In  the  first  place,  the  imitation  of  the  classics 
resulted  in  the  study  and  cult  of  external  form. 
Elegance,  polish,  clearness  of  design,  became  ob- 
jects of  study  for  themselves ;  and  as  a  result  we 
have  the  formation  of  aesthetic  taste,  and  the  growth 
of  a  classic  purism,  to  which  many  of  the  literary 
tendencies  of  the  Renaissance  may  be  traced.^ 
Under  Leo  X.  and  throughout  the  first  half  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  the  intricacies  of  style  and 
versification  were  carefully  studied.  Vida  was  the 
first  to  lay  down  laws  of  imitative  harmony ;  ^ 
Bembo,  and  after  him  Dolce  and  others,  studied 
the  poetic  effect  of  different  sounds,  and  the  ono- 
matopoeic value  of  the  various  vowels  and  con- 
sonants ;  *  Claudio  Tolomei  attempted  to  introduce 
classical  metres  into  the  vernacular  ;  *  Trissino  pub- 
lished subtle  and  systematic  researches  in  Tuscan 

1  Sjrmonds,  ii.  161,  based  on  Voigt. 

2  Cf.  Woodward,  p.  210  sq. 

«  Hallam,  Lit.  of  Europe,  i.  8.  1.  Cf.  Pope,  i.  182:  "  Omnia 
sed  numeris  vocum  concordibus  aptant,"  etc. 

^  Bembo,  Z/C  Prose,  1525;  Dolce,  Osservationi,  1550,  lib.  iv.; 
etc. 

6  Versi  e  Regole  de  la  Nuova  Poesia  Toscana,  1539. 


v.]  GROWTH   OF   THE   CLASSIC    SPIRIT         127 

language  and  versification.^  Later,  the  rhetorical 
treatises  of  Cavalcanti  (1565),  Lionarcli  (1554),  and 
Partenio  (1560),  and  the  more  practical  manuals  of 
Fanucci  (1533),  Equicola  (1541),  and  Ruscelli  (1559), 
all  testify  to  the  tremendous  impulse  which  the  imi- 
tation of  the  classics  had  given  to  the  study  of  form 
both  in  classical  and  vernacular  literatures. 

In  Vida's  Aj-s  Poetica  there  are  abundant  evi- 
dences of  the  rhetorical  and  especially  the  puristic 
tendencies  of  modern  classicism.  The  mechanical 
conception  of  poetic  expression,  in  which  imagi- 
nation, sensibility,  and  passion  are  subjected  to  the 
elaborate  and  intricate  precepts  of  art,  is  every- 
where found  in  Vida's  poem.  Like  Horace,  Vida 
insists  on  long  preparation  for  the  composition  of 
poetry,  and  warns  the  poet  against  the  indulgence 
of  his  first  impulses.  He  suggests  as  a  preparation 
for  the  composition  of  poetry,  that  the  poet  should 
prepare  a  list  of  phrases  and  images  for  use  when- 
ever occasion  may  demand.^  He  impresses  upon 
the  poet  the  necessity  of  euphemistic  expressions 
in  introducing  the  subject  of  his  poem;  for  ex- 
ample, the  name  of  Ulysses  should  not  be  men- 
tioned, but  he  should  be  referred  to  as  one  who 
has  seen  many  men  and  many  cities,  who  has  suf- 
fered shipwreck  on  the  return  from  Troy,  and  the 
like.^  In  such  mechanical  precepts  as  these,  the 
rhetoric  of  seventeenth-century  classicism  is  antici- 

1  Trissino,  Poitica,  lib.  i.-iv.,  1529;  Tomitano,  Delia  Lingua 
Toscana,  1545 ;  etc. 

2  Pope,  i.  134.     Cf.  De  Sanctis,  ii.  153  sq. 
8  Pope,  i.  152. 


128  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

pated.  Its  restraint,  its  purity,  its  mechanical  side, 
are  everywhere  visible  in  Vida.  A  little  later,  in 
Daniello,  we  find  similar  puristic  tendencies.  He 
requires  the  severe  separation  of  genres,  decorum 
and  propriety  of  characterization,  and  the  exclusion 
of  everything  disagreeable  from  the  stage.  In  Par- 
tenio's  Delia  Imitatione  Poetica  (1560),  the  poet  is 
expressly  forbidden  the  employment  of  the  ordinary 
words  in  daily  use,^  and  elegance  of  form  is  especially 
demanded.  Partenio  regards  form  as  of  superior 
importance  to  subject  or  idea;  for  those  who  hear 
or  read  poetry  care  more  for  beauty  of  diction  than 
for  character  or  even  thought.^ 

It  is  on  merely  rhetorical  grounds  that  Partenio 
distinguishes  excellent  from  mediocre  poetry.  The 
good  poet,  unlike  the  bad  one,  is  able  to  give  splen- 
dor and  dignity  to  the  most  trivial  idea  by  means 
of  adornments  of  diction  and  disposition.  This 
conception  seems  to  have  particularly  appealed  to 
the  Renaissance;  and  Tasso  gives  expression  to  a 
similar  notion  when  he  calls  it  the  poet's  noblest 
function  "to  make  of  old  concepts  new  ones,  to 
make  of  vulgar  concepts  noble  ones,  and  to  make 
common  concepts  his  own."  ^  In  a  higher  and  more 
ideal  sense,  poetry,  according  to  Shelley,  "  makes 
familiar  objects  be  as  if  they  were  not  familiar."* 

It  is  in  keeping  with  this  rhetorical  ideal  of 
classicism  that  Scaliger  makes  electio  et  sui  fasti- 
dium  the  highest  virtues  of  the  poet.^    All  that  is 

1  Partenio,  p.  80.  ■*  Defence,  p.  13. 

2  Ibid.  p.  95.  0  Poet.  V.  3. 
*  Opere,  xi.  51. 


v.]  GROWTH  OF  THE   CLASSIC   SPIRIT        129 

merely  popular  (plebeium)  in  thought  and  expres- 
sion is  to  be  minutely  avoided ;  for  only  that  which 
proceeds  from  solid  erudition  is  proper  to  art.  The 
basis  of  artistic  creation  is  imitation  and  judgment; 
for  every  artist  is  at  bottom  somewhat  of  an  echo.^ 
Grace,  decorum,  elegance,  splendor  are  the  chief 
excellences  of  poetry  and  the  life  of  all  excellence 
lies  in  measure,  that  is,  moderation  and  proportion. 
It  is  in  the  spirit  of  this  classical  purism  that 
Scaliger  minutely  distinguishes  the  various  rhetori- 
cal and  grammatical  figures,  and  carefully  estimates 
their  proper  place  and  function  in  poetry.  His 
analysis  and  systematization  of  the  figures  were 
immediately  accepted  by  the  scholars  and  gram- 
marians of  his  time,  and  have  played  a  large  part  in 
French  education  ever  since.  Another  consequence 
of  Scaliger's  dogmatic  teaching,  the  Latinization  of 
culture,  can  only  be  referred  to  here  in  passing.- 

A  second  result  of  the  imitation  of  the  classics  was 
the  paganization  of  Renaissance  culture.  Classic  art 
is  at  bottom  pagan,  and  the  Renaissance  sacrificed 
everything  in  order  to  appear  classical.^  Not  only 
did  Christian  literature  seem  contemptible  when 
compared  with  classic  literature,  but  the  mere 
treatment  of  Christian  themes  offered  numerous 
difficulties  in  itself.  Thus-Muzio  declares  that  the 
ancient  fables  are  the  best  poetic  materials,  since 
they  permit  the  introduction  of  the  deities  into 
poetry,  and  a  poem,  being  something  divine,  should 
not  dispense  with  the  association  of  divinity.^     To 

1  Poet.  V.  1 ;  vi.  4.  8  Symonds,  ii.  395  sq. 

2  Cf.  Brunetiere,  p.  53.  *  Muzio,  p.  94. 

K 


130  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

bring  the  God  of  Israel  into  poetry,  to  represent 
him,  as  it  were,  in  the  flesh,  discoursing  and  argu- 
ing with  men,  was  sacrilege ;  and  to  give  the  events 
of  poetic  narrative  divine  authoritativeness,  the 
pagan  deities  became  necessities  of  Renaissance 
poetry.  Savonarola,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and 
the  Council  of  Trent,  in  the  sixteenth,  reacted 
against  the  paganization  of  literature,  but  in  vain. 
Despite  the  Council  of  Trent,  despite  Tasso  and  Du 
Bartas,  the  pagan  gods  held  sway  over  Parnassus 
until  the  very  end  of  the  classical  period ;  and  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  as  will  be  seen,  Boileau 
expressly  discourages  the  treatment  of  Christian 
themes,  and  insists  that  the  ancient  pagan  fables 
alone  must  form  the  basis  of  neo-classical  art. 

A  third  result  of  the  imitation  of  the  classics 
was  the  development  of  applied,  or  concrete,  criti- 
cism. If  the  foundations  of  literature,  if  the  for- 
mation of  style,  can  result  only  from  a  close  and 
judicious  imitation  of  classical  literature,  this  prob- 
lem confronts  us :  Which  classical  authors  are  we  to 
imitate  ?  An  answer  to  this  question  involves  the 
application  of  concrete  criticism.  A  reason  must 
be  given  for  one's  preferences ;  in  other  words, 
they  must  be  justified  on  principle.  The  literary 
controversies  of  the  humanists,  the  disputes  on  the 
subject  of  imitation,  of  Ciceronianism,  and  what 
not,  all  tended  in  this  direction.  The  judgment  of 
authors  was  dependent  more  or  less  on  individual 
iitipressions.  But  the  longer  these  controversies 
continued,  the  nearer  was  the  approach  to  a  liter- 
ary criticism,  justified  by  appeals  to  general  prin- 


v.]  GROWTH   OF  THE   CLASSIC   SPIRIT  131 

ciples,  which  became  more  and  more  fixed  and 
determined ;  so  that  the  growth  of  principles,  or 
criteria  of  judgment  in  matters  of  literature,  is  in 
reality  coterminous  with  the  history  of  the  growth 
of  classicism.^ 

But  one  of  the  most  important  consequences  of 
the  imitation  of  the  classics  was  that  this  imita- 
tion became  a  dogma  of  criticism,  and  radically 
changed  the  relations  of  art  and  nature  in  so  far  as 
they  touch  letters  and  literary  criticism.  The 
imitation  of  the  classics  became,  in  a  word,  the 
basis  of  literary  creation.  Vida,  for  example,  af- 
firms that  the  poet  must  imitate  classical  literature, 
for  only  by  such  imitation  is  perfection  attainable 
in  modern  poetry.  In  fact,  this  notion  is  carried  to 
such  an  extreme  that  the  highest  originality  be- 
comes for  Vida  merely  the  ingenious  translation  of 
passages  from  the  classic  poets  :  — 

"Haud  minor  est  adeo  virtus,  si  te  audit  Apollo, 
Inventa  Argivum  in  patriam  convertere  vocem, 
Quam  si  tute  aliquid  intactum  in  veneris  ante."  ^ 

Muzio,  echoing  Horace,  urges  the  poet  to  study 
the  classics  by  day  and  by  night ;  and  Scaliger,  as 
has  been  seen,  makes  all  literary  creation  depend 
ultimately  on  judicious  imitation:  ^'ISTemo  est  qui 
non  aliquid  de  Echo."  As  a  result,  imitation  grad- 
ually acquired  a  specialized  and  almost  esoteric 
meaning,  and  became  in  this  sense  the  starting- 
point  of  all  the  educational  theories  of  the  later 

1  Cf.  Dennis,  Select  Wot1c&,  1718,  ii.  417  «g. 

2  Pope,  i.  167. 


132  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

humanists.  The  doctrine  of  imitation  set  forth  by 
John  Sturm,  the  Strasburg  humanist,  was  particu- 
larly influential.^  According  to  Sturm,  imitation  is 
not  the  servile  copying  of  words  and  phrases ;  it  is  "a 
vehement  and  artistic  apiolication  of  mind,"  which 
judiciously  uses  and  transfigures  all  that  it  imitates. 
Sturm's  theory  of  imitation  is  not  entirely  original, 
but  comes  through  Agricola  and  Melanchthon  from 
Quintilian.^  Quintilian  had  said  that  the  greater 
part  of  art  consists  in  imitation;  but  for  the  hu- 
manists imitation  became  the  chief  and  almost  the 
only  element  of  literary  creation,  since  the  litera- 
ture of  their  own  time  seemed  so  vastly  inferior  to 
that  of  the  ancients. 

The  imitation  of  the  classics  having  thus  become 
essential  to  literary  creation,  what  was  to  be  its  re- 
lation to  the  imitation  of  nature  ?  The  ancient 
poets  seemed  to  insist  that  every  writer  is  at  bottom 
an  imitator  of  nature,  and  that  he  who  does  not 
imitate  nature  diverges  from  the  purpose  and  prin- 
ciple of  art.  A  lesson  coming  from  a  source  so 
authoritative  as  this  could  not  be  left  unheeded  by 
the  writers  of  the  Renaissance,  and  the  evolution  of 
classicism  may  be  distinguished  by  the  changing 
point  of  view  of  the  critics  in  regard  to  the  relations 
between  nature  and  art.  This  evolution  may  be 
traced  in  the  neo-classical  period  through  three  dis- 
tinct stages,  and  these  three  stages  may  be  indicated 
by  the  doctrines  respectively  of  Vida,  Scaliger,  and 
Boileau. 

1  Laas,  Die  Puedagogik  des  Johannes  Sturm,  Berlin,  1872, 
p.  ti6  sq.  2  Just.  Orat.  x.  2. 


v.]  GROWTH   OF   THE   CLASSIC   SPIRIT         133 

Vida  says  that  it  is  the  first  essential  of  literary 
art  to  imitate  the  classics.  This,  however,  does  not 
prevent  him  from  warning  the  poet  that  it  is  his 
first  duty  to  observe  and  copy  nature :  — 

"Prseterea  baud  lateat  te,  nil  conarier  artem, 
Naturam  nisi  ut  assimulet,  propiusque  sequatvir." 

For  Vida,  however,  as  for  the  later  classicists,  nature 
is  synonymous  with  civilized  men,  perhaps  even 
further  restricted  to  the  men  of  the  city  and  the 
court ;  and  the  study  of  nature  was  hardly  more  for 
him  than  close  observation  of  the  differences  of 
human  character,  more  especially  of  the  external 
differences  which  result  from  diversity  of  age, 
rank,  sex,  race,  profession,  and  which  may  be 
designated  by  the  term  decorum}  The  imita- 
tion of  nature  even  in  this  restricted  sense  Vida 
requires  on  the  authority  of  the  ancients.  The 
modern  poet  should  imitate  nature  because  the 
great  classical  poets  have  always  acknowledged  her 
sway :  — 

"  Hanc  unam  vates  sibl  proposuere  magistram." 

Nature  has  no  particular  interest  for  Vida  in  itself. 
He  accepts  the  classics  as  we  accept  the  Scriptures ; 
and  nature  is  to  be  imitated  and  followed  because 
the  ancients  seem  to  require  it. 

In  Scaliger  this  principle  is  carried  one  stage 
farther.  The  poet  creates  another  nature  and  other 
fortunes  as  if  he  were  another  God.^  Virgil  espe- 
cially has  created  another  nature  of  such  beauty 
and  perfection  that  the  poet  need  not  concern  him- 
1  Pope,  i.  165.  2  Poet.  i.  1. 


134  LITERARY   CRITICLSM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

self  with  the  realities  of  life,  but  can  go  to  the 
second  nature  created  by  Virgil  for  the  subject- 
matter  of  his  imitation.  "  All  the  things  which 
you  have  to  imitate,  you  have  according  to  another 
nature,  that  is,  Virgil."  ^  In  Virgil,  as  in  nature, 
there  are  the  most  minute  details  of  the  foundation 
and  government  of  cities,  the  management  of  armies, 
the  building  and  handling  of  ships,  and  in  fact  all 
the  secrets  of  the  arts  and  sciences.  What  more 
can  the  poet  desire,  and  indeed  what  more  can  he 
find  in  life,  and  find  there  with  the  same  certainty 
and  accuracy  ?  Virgil  has  created  a  nature  far 
more  perfect  than  that  of  reality,  and  one  compared 
with  which  the  actual  world  and  life  itself  seem 
but  pale  and  without  beauty.  What  Scaliger 
stands  for,  then,  is  the  substitution  of  the  world  of 
art  instead  of  life  as  the  object  of  poetic  imitation. 
This  point  of  view  finds  expression  in  many  of  the 
theorists  of  his  time.  Partenio,  for  example,  asserts 
that  art  is  a  firmer  and  safer  guide  than  nature ; 
with  nature  we  can  err,  but  scarcely  with  art,  for 
art  eradicates  from  nature  all  that  is  bad,  while 
nature  mingles  weeds  with  flowers,  and  does  not 
distinguish  vices  from  virtues.^ 

Boileau  carries  the  neo-classical  ideal  of  nature 
and  art  to  its  ultimate  perfection.  According  to 
him,  nothing  is  beautiful  that  is  not  true,  and  noth- 
ing is  true  that  is  not  in  nature.  Truth,  for  classi- 
cism, is  the  final  test  of  everything,  including  beauty ; 
and  hence  to  be  beautiful  poetry  must  be  founded 
on  nature.  Nature  should  therefore  be  the  poet's 
1  Poet.  iii.  4.  ^  Partenio,  p.  39  sq. 


v.]  GROWTH  OF  THE   CLASSIC   SPIRIT         135 

sole  study,  although,  for  Boileau,  as  for  Vida,  nature 
is  one  with  the  court  and  the  city.  Now,  in  what 
way  can  we  discover  exactly  how  to  imitate  nature, 
and  perceive  whether  or  not  we  have  imitated  it 
correctly  ?  Boileau  finds  the  guide  to  the  correct 
imitation  of  nature,  and  the  very  test  of  its  correct- 
ness, in  the  imitation  of  the  classics.  The  ancients 
are  great,  not  because  they  are  old,  but  because 
they  are  true,  because  they  knew  how  to  see  and 
to  imitate  nature ;  and  to  imitate  antiquity  is  there- 
fore to  use  the  best  means  the  human  spirit  has 
ever  found  for  expressing  nature  in  its  perfection.^ 
The  advance  of  Boileau's  theory  on  that  of  Vida 
and  Scaliger  is  therefore  that  he  founded  the 
rules  and  literary  practice  of  classical  literature  on 
reason  and  nature,  and  showed  that  there  is  nothing 
arbitrary  in  the  authority  of  the  ancients.  For 
Vida,  nature  is  to  be  followed  on  the  authority 
of  the  classics;  for  Boileau,  the  classics  are  to 
be  followed  on  the  authority  of  nature  and  reason. 
Scaliger  had  shown  that  such  a  poet  as  Virgil 
had  created  another  nature  more  perfect  than  that 
of  reality,  and  that  therefore  we  should  imitate 
this  more  beautiful  nature  of  the  poet.  Boileau,  on 
the  contrary,  showed  that  the  ancients  were  simply 
imitating  nature  itself  in  the  closest  and  keenest 
manner,  and  that  by  imitating  the  classics  the  poet 
was  not  imitating  a  second  and  different  nature,  but 
was  being  shown  in  the  surest  way  how  to  imitate 
the  real  and  only  nature.     This  final  reconciliation 

1  Cf.  Brunetiere,  p.  102  sq.,  and  Lanson,  Hut.  de  la  Litt.  fr., 
p.  494  sq. 


136  LITERAKY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

of  the  imitation  of  nature  and  the  imitation  of  the 
classics  was  Boileau's  highest  contribution  to  the 
literary  criticism  of  the  neo-classical  period. 

II.    Aristotelianism 

The  influence  of  Aristotle's  Poetics  is  first  visi- 
ble in  the  dramatic  literature  of  the  early  sixteenth 
century.  Trissino's  Sofonisba  (1515),  usually  ac- 
counted the  first  regular  modern  tragedy,  Eucellai's 
Bosmunda  (1516),  and  innumerable  other  tragedies 
of  this  period,  were  in  reality  little  more  than  mere 
attempts  at  pvitting  the  Aristotelian  theory  of  trag- 
edy into  practice.  The  Aristotelian  influence  is 
evident  in  many  of  the  prefaces  of  these  plays,  and 
in  a  few  contemporary  works  of  scholarship,  such 
as  the  Antiquce  Lectiones  (1516)  of  Cselius  Ehodi- 
ginus,  whom  Scaliger  called  omnium  doctissimus 
prceceptor  noster.  At  the  same  time,  the  Poetics 
did  not  immediately  play  an  important  part  in  the 
critical  literature  of  Italy.  From  the  time  of  Pe- 
trarch, Aristotle,  identified  in  the  minds  of  the 
humanists  with  the  mediaeval  scholasticism  so  ob- 
noxious to  them,  had  lost  somewhat  of  his  suprem- 
acy; and  the  strong  Platonic  tendencies  of  the 
Renaissance  had  further  contributed  to  lower  the 
prestige  of  Aristotelianism  among  the  humanists. 
At  no  time  of  the  Renaissance,  however,  did  Aris- 
totle lack  ardent  defenders,  and  Filelfo,  for  exam- 
ple, wrote  in  1439,  "  To  defend  Aristotle  and  the 
truth  seems  to  me  one  and  the  same  thing."  ^  In 
the  domain  of  philosophy  the  influence  of  Aristotle 
1  Lettres  grecques,  ed.  Legraud,  1892,  p.  31. 


v.]  GROWTH   OF   THE   CLASSIC   SPIRIT         137 

was  temporarily  sustained  by  the  liberal  Peripateti- 
cism  of  Pomponazzi ;  and  numerous  others,  among 
them  Scaliger  himself,  continued  the  traditions  of  a 
modernized  Aristotelianism.  From  this  time,  how- 
ever, Aristotle's  position  as  the  supreme  philoso- 
pher was  challenged  more  and  more ;  and  he  was 
regarded  by  the  advanced  thinkers  of  the  Renais- 
sance as  the  representative  of  the  mediaeval  obscur- 
antism that  opposed  the  progress  of  modern  scien- 
tific investigation. 

But  whatever  of  Aristotle's  authority  was  lost  in 
the  domain  of  philosophy  was  more  than  regained 
in  the  domain  of  literature.  The  beginning  of 
the  Aristotelian  influence  on  modern  literary 
theory  may  be  said  to  date  from  the  year  1536, 
in  which  year  Trincaveli  published  a  Greek  text 
of  the  Poetics,  Pazzi  his  edition  and  Latin  ver- 
sion, and  Daniello  his  own  Poetica.  Pazzi's  son, 
in  dedicating  his  father's  posthumous  work,  said 
that  in  the  Poetics  "the  precepts  of  poetic  art 
are  treated  by  Aristotle  as  divinely  as  he  has 
treated  every  other  form  of  knowledge."  In  the 
very  year  that  this  was  said,  Eamus  gained  his 
Master's  degree  at  the  University  of  Paris  by  de- 
fending victoriously  the  thesis  that  Aristotle's  doc- 
trines without  exception  are  all  false. ^  The  year 
1536  may  therefore  be  regarded  as  a  turning-point 
in  the  history  of  Aristotle's  influence.  It  marks  the 
beginning  of  his  supremacy  in  literature,  and  the 
decline  of  his  dictatorial  authority  in  philosophy. 

1  "QusBcunque  ab  Aristotele  dicta  sint  falsa  et  commentitia 
esse ;  "  Bayle,  Diet.  s.  v.  Ramus,  DOte  C. 


138  LITERARY   CRITICISM  IN  ITALY       [chap. 

Between  the  year  1536  and  the  middle  of  the 
century  the  lessons  of  Aristotle's  Poetics  were  be- 
ing gradually  learned  by  the  Italian  critics  and 
poets.  By  1550  the  whole  of  the  Poetics  had  been 
incorporated  in  the  critical  literature  of  Italy,  and 
Fracastoro  could  say  that  "Aristotle  has  received  no 
less  fame  from  the  survival  of  his  Poetics  than  from 
his  philosophical  remains."^  According  to  Bar- 
tolommeo  Ricci,  in  a  letter  to  Prince  Alfonso,  son  of 
Hercules  II.,  Duke  of  Ferrara,  Maggi  was  the  first 
person  to  interpret  Aristotle's  Poetics  in  public' 
These  lectures  were  delivered  some  time  before 
April,  1549.  As  early  as  1540,  Bartolommeo  Lom- 
bardi,  the  collaborator  of  Maggi  in  his  commentary 
on  the  Poetics,  had  intended  to  deliver  public  lec- 
tures on  the  Poetics  before  a  Paduan  academy,  but 
died  before  accomplishing  his  purpose.^  Numerous 
public  readings  on  the  subject  of  Aristotle  and 
Horace  followed  those  of  Maggi,  —  among  them 
those  by  Varchi,  Giraldi  Cintio,  Luisino,  and  Tri- 
fone  Gabrielli;  and  the  number  of  public  read- 
ings on  topics  connected  with  literary  criticism,  and 
on  the  poetry  of  Dante  and  Petrarch,  increased 
greatly  from  this  time. 

The  number  of  commentaries  on  the  Poetics  it- 
self, published  during  the  sixteenth  century,  is 
really  remarkable.  The  value  of  these  commen- 
taries in  general  is  not  so  much  that  they  add  any- 
thing to  the  literary  criticism  of  the  Renaissance, 
but  that  their  explanations  of  Aristotle's  meaning 

1  Fracastoro,  i.  321.  ^  Tiraboschi,  vii.  1465. 

3  Maggi,  dedication. 


v.]  GROWTH  OF  THE   CLASSIC   SPIRIT         139 

were  accepted  by  contemporary  critics,  and  became 
in  a  way  the  source  of  all  the  literary  arguments  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  Nor  was  their  influence 
restricted  merely  to  this  particular  period.  They 
were,  one  might  almost  say,  living  things  to  the 
critics  and  poets  of  the  classical  period  in  France. 
Racine,  Corneille,  and  other  distinguished  writers 
possessed  copies  of  these  commentaries,  studied 
them  carefully,  cited  them  in  their  prefaces  and 
critical  writings,  and  even  annotated  their  own 
copies  of  the  commentaries  with  marginal  notes,  of 
which  some  may  be  seen  in  the  modern  editions  of 
their  works.  In  the  preface  to  Eapin's  Reflexions 
sur  VArt  Poetique  (1674)  there  is  a  history  of  liter- 
ary criticism,  which  is  almost  entirely  devoted  to 
these  Italian  commentators ;  and  writers  like  Chape- 
lain  and  Balzac  eagerly  argued  and  discussed  their 
relative  merits. 

Several  of  these  Italian  commentators  have  been 
alluded  to  already.-^  The  first  critical  edition  of  the 
Poetics  was  that  of  Eobortelli  (1548),  and  this  was 
followed  by  those  of  Maggi  (1550)  and  Vettori 
(1560),  both  written  in  Latin,  and  both  exhibiting 
great  learning  and  acumen.  The  first  translation 
of  the  Poetics  into  the  vernacular  was  that  by  Segni 
(1549),  and  this  was  followed  by  the  Italian  com- 
mentaries of  Castelvetro  (1570)  and  Piccolomini 
(1575).  Tasso,  after  comparing  the  works  of  these 
two  commentators,  concluded  that  while  Castelvetro 

1  In  an  appendix  to  this  essay  will  be  found  an  excerpt  from 
Salviati's  unpublished  commentary  on  the  Poetics,  giving  his 
judgment  of  the  commentators  who  had  preceded  him. 


140  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

had  greater  erudition  and  invention,  Piccolomini  had 
greatermaturity  of  judgment,  more  learning,  perhaps, 
with  less  erudition,  and  certainly  learning  more  Aris- 
totelian and  more  suited  to  the  interpretation  of  the 
Poetics}  The  two  last  sections  of  Trissino's  Poetica, 
published  in  1563,  are  little  more  than  a  paraphrase 
and  transposition  of  Aristotle's  treatise.  But  the 
curious  excesses  into  which  admiration  of  Aristotle 
led  the  Italian  scholars  may  be  gathered  from  a 
work  published  at  Milan  in  1576,  an  edition  of  the 
Poetics  expounded  in  verse,  Baldini's  Ars  Poetica 
Aristotelis  versihus  exposita.  The  Poetics  was  also 
adapted  for  use  as  a  practical  manual  for  poets  and 
playwrights  in  such  works  as  Eiccoboni's  brief  Com- 
pendium Artis  Poeticce  Aristotelis  ad  usum  conficien- 
dorum  poematum  (1591).  The  last  of  the  great 
Italian  commentaries  on  the  Poetics  to  have  a  gen- 
eral European  influence  was  perhaps  Beni's,  pub- 
lished in  1613;  but  this  carries  us  beyond  the 
confines  of  the  century.  Besides  the  published 
editions,  translations,  and  commentaries,  many 
others  were  written  which  may  still  be  found  in 
Ms.  in  the  libraries  of  Italy.  Reference  has 
already  been  made  to  Salviati's  (1586).  There  are 
also  two  anonymous  commentaries  dating  from  this 
period  in  Ms.  at  Florence,  —  one  in  the  Maglia- 
bechiana  and  the  other  in  the  Hiccardiana.  The 
last  work  which  may  be  mentioned  here  is  Buona- 
mici's  Discorsi  Poetici  in  difesa  d'  Aristotele,  in 
which  Aristotle  is  ardently  defended  against  the 
attacks  of  his  detractors. 

1  Tasso,  XV.  20. 


v.]  GROWTH   OF   THE   CLASSIC   SPIRIT         141 

It  was  in  Italy  during  this  period  that  the  literary 
dictatorship  of  Aristotle  first  developed,  and  it  was 
Scaliger  to  whom  the  modern  world  owes  the  for- 
mulation of  the  supreme  authority  of  Aristotle  as  a 
critical  theorist.  Fracastoro  had  likened  the  im- 
portance of  Aristotle's  Poetics  to  that  of  his  philo- 
sophical treatises.  Trissino  had  followed  Aristotle 
verbally  and  almost  literally.  Varchi  had  spoken  of 
years  of  Aristotelian  study  as  an  essential  prerequi- 
site for  every  one  who  entered  the  field  of  literary 
criticism.  Partenio,  a  year  before  the  publication 
of  Scaliger's  Poetics,  had  asserted  that  everything 
relating  to  tragedy  and  epic  poetry  had  been  settled 
by  Aristotle  and  Horace.  But  Scaliger  went  farther 
still.  He  was  the  first  to  regard  Aristotle  as  the 
perpetual  lawgiver  of  poetry.  He  was  the  first  to 
assume  that  the  duty  of  the  poet  is  first  to  find  out 
what  Aristotle  says,  and  then  to  obey  these  precepts 
without  question.  He  distinctly  calls  Aristotle  the 
perpetual  dictator  of  all  the  arts :  "  Aristoteles  im- 
perator  noster,  omnium  bonarum  artium  dictator 
perpetuus."^  This  is  perhaps  the  first  occasion  in 
modern  literature  in  which  Aristotle  is  definitely 
regarded  as  a  literary  dictator,  and  the  dictatorship 
of  Aristotle  in  literature  may,  therefore,  be  dated 
from  the  year  1561. 

But  Scaliger  did  more  than  this.  He  was  the 
first  apparently  to  attempt  to  reconcile  Aristotle's 
Poetics,  not  only  with  the  precepts  of  Horace  and 
the  definitions  of  the  Latin  grammarians,  but  with 
the  whole  practice  of  Latin  tragedy,  comedy,  and 
^  Poet.  vii.  ii.  1. 


142  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

epic  poetry.  It  was  in  the  light  of  this  recon- 
ciliation, or  concord  of  Aristotelianism  with  the 
Latin  spirit,  that  Aristotle  became  for  Scaliger 
a  literary  dictator.  It  was  not  Aristotle  that  pri- 
marily interested  him,  but  an  ideal  created  by  him- 
self, and  founded  on  such  parts  of  the  doctrine  of 
Aristotle  as  received  confirmation  from  the  theory 
or  practice  of  Roman  literature ;  and  this  new  ideal, 
harmonizing  with  the  Latin  spirit  of  the  Eenais- 
sance,  became  in  the  course  of  time  one  of  the  founda- 
tions of  classicism.  The  influence  of  Aristotelianism 
was  further  augmented  by  the  Council  of  Trent, 
which  gave  to  Aristotle's  doctrine  the  same  degree 
of  authority  as  Catholic  dogma. 

All  these  circumstances  tended  to  favor  the 
importance  of  Aristotle  in  Italy  during  the  six- 
teenth century,  and  as  a  result  the  literary  dicta- 
torship of  Aristotle  was  by  the  Italians  foisted  on 
Europe  for  two  centuries  to  come.  From  1560  to 
1780  Aristotle  was  regarded  as  the  supreme  author- 
ity in  letters  throughout  Europe.  At  no  time,  even 
in  England,  during  and  after  that  period,  was  there 
a  break  in  the  Aristotelian  tradition,  and  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Poetics  may  be  found  in  Sidney  and  Ben 
Jonson,  in  Milton  and  Dryden,  as  well  as  in  Shelley 
and  Coleridge.  Lessing,  even  in  breaking  away 
from  the  classical  practice  of  the  French  stage,  de- 
feuded  his  innovations  on  the  authority  of  Aristotle, 
and  said  of  the  Poetics,  "I  do  not  hesitate  to 
acknowledge,  even  if  I  should  therefore  be  held  up 
to  scorn  in  these  enlightened  times,  that  I  con- 
sider  the  work   as  infallible  as  the  Elements  of 


v.]  GROWTH  OF  THE   CLASSIC   SPIRIT         143 

Euclid."  ^  In  1756,  a  dozen  years  before  Lessing,  one 
of  the  precursors  of  the  romantic  movement  in  Eng- 
land, Joseph  Warton,  had  also  said  of  the  Poetics, 
"  To  attempt  to  understand  poetry  without  having 
diligently  digested  this  treatise  would  be  as  absurd 
and  impossible  as  to  pretend  to  a  skill  in  geometry 
without  having  studied  Euclid."^ 

One  of  the  first  results  of  the  dictatorship  of 
Aristotle  was  to  give  modern  literature  a  body  of 
inviolable  rules  for  the  drama  and  the  epic;  that 
is,  the  dramatic  and  heroic  poets  were  restricted  to 
a  certain  fixed  form,  and  to  certain  fixed  characters. 
Classical  poetry  was  of  course  the  ideal  of  the 
Renaissance,  and  Aristotle  had  analyzed  the 
methods  which  these  works  had  employed.  The 
inference  seems  to  have  been  that  by  following 
these  rules  a  literature  of  equal  importance  could 
be  created.  These  formulae  were  at  the  bottom  of 
classical  literature,  and  rules  which  had  created 
such  literatures  as  those  of  Greece  and  Eome  could 
hardly  be  disregarded.  As  a  result,  these  rules 
came  to  be  considered  more  and  more  as  essentials, 
and  finally,  almost  as  the  very  tests  of  literature; 
and  it  was  in  consequence  of  their  acceptance 
as  poetic  laws  that  the  modern  classical  drama 
and  epic  arose.  The  first  modern  tragedies  and  ■■ 
the  first  modern  epics  were  hardly  more  than 
such  attempts  at  putting  the  Aristotelian  rules 
into  practice.  The  cult  of  form  during  the  Re- 
naissance   had    produced  a  reaction    against  the 

1  Hamburg.  Dramat.  101-104. 
'  Essay  on  Pope,  3d  ed.,  i.  171. 


144  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       ticHAP. 

formlessness  and  invertebrate  character  of  mediaeval 
literature.  The  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages  was 
infinitely  inferior  to  that  of  the  ancients ;  mediaeval 
literature  lacked  form  and  structure,  classical  litera- 
ture had  a  regular  and  definite  form.  Form  then 
came  to  be  regarded  as  the  essential  difference  be- 
tween the  perfect  literatures  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
and  the  imperfect  and  vulgar  literature  of  the 
Middle  Ages ;  and  the  deduction  from  this  was  that, 
to  be  classical,  the  poet  must  observe  the  form  and 
structure  of  the  classics.  Minturno  indeed  says 
that  "the  precepts  given  of  old  by  the  ancient 
masters,  and  now  repeated  by  me  here,  are  to  be 
regarded  merely  as  common  usage,  and  not  as  invi- 
olable laws  which  must  serve  under  all  circum- 
stances."^ But  this  was  not  the  general  conception 
of  the  Renaissance.  Muzio,  for  example,  specifi- 
cally says: — 

•*  Queste  legge  ch'  io  scrivo  e  questi  esempi 
Sian,  lettore,  al  tuo  dir  perpetua  norma ; " 

and  in  another  place  he  speaks  of  a  precept  he  has 
given,  as  "  vera,  f erma,  e  inevitabil  legge."  -  Scali- 
ger  goes  still  further  than  this ;  for,  according  to 
him,  even  the  classics  themselves  are  to  be  judged 
by  these  standards  and  rules.  "  It  seems  to  me," 
says  Scaliger,  "that  we  ought  not  to  refer  every- 
thing back  to  Homer,  just  as  though  he  were  the 
'norm,  but  Homer  himself  should  be  referred  to  the 
norm."^     In  the  modern  classical  period  somewhat 

^Arte  Poetica,  p.  158.  ^  Muzio,  pp.  81  v.,  76  v. 

8  Poet.  i.  5. 


v.]  GROWTH  OF  THE   CLASSIC   SPIRIT         145 

later,  these  rules  were  found  to  be  based  on 
reason :  — 

'*  These  rules  of  old,  discovered  not  devised, 
Are  nature  still,  but  nature  methodized."  ^ 

But  during  the  Eenaissance  they  were  accepted  ex 
cathedra  from  classical  literature. 

The  formulation  of  a  fixed  body  of  critical 
rules  was  not  the  only  result  of  the  Aristotelian 
influence.  One  of  the  most  important  of  these 
results,  as  has  appeared,  was  the  rational  justifica- 
tion of  imaginative  literature.  With  the  introduc- 
tion of  Aristotle's  Poetics  into  modern  Europe  the 
Eenaissance  was  first  able  to  formulate  a  systematic 
theory  of  poetry ;  and  it  is  therefore  to  the  redis- 
covery of  the  Poetics  that  we  may  be  said  to  owe 
the  foundation  of  modern  criticism.  It  was  on  the 
side  of  Aristotelianism  that  Italian  criticism  had 
its  influence  on  European  letters ;  and  that  this 
influence  was  deep  and  widespread,  our  study  of 
the  critical  literatures  of  France  and  England  will 
in  part  show.  The  critics  with  whom  we  have  been 
dealing  are  not  merely  dead  provincial  names; 
they  influenced,  for  two  whole  centuries,  not  only 
France  and  England,  but  Spain,  Portugal,  and 
Germany  as  well. 

Literary  criticism,  in  any  real  sense,  did  not  be- 
gin in  Spain  until  the  very  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  the  critical  works  that  then  appeared 
were  wholly  based  on  those  of  the  Italians.  Een- 
gifo's  Arte  Poetica  Espanola  (1592),  in  so  far  as  i1: 
1  Pope,  Essay  on  Criticism,  88, 


146  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY      [chap. 

deals  with  the  theory  of  poetry,  is  based  on  Aris- 
totle, Scaliger,  and  various  Italian  authorities, 
according  to  the  author's  own  acknowledgment. 
Pinciano's  Philosophia  Antigua  Poetica  (1596)  is 
based  on  the  same  authorities.  Similarly,  Cascales, 
in  his  Tobias  Poiticas  (1616),  gives  as  his  authori- 
ties Minturno,  Giraldi  Cintio,  Maggi,  Riccoboni, 
Castelvetro,  Eobortelli,  and  his  own  countryman 
Pinciano.  The  sources  of  these  and  all  other  works 
written  at  this  period  are  Italian;  and  the  fol- 
lowing passage  from  the  Egemplar  Poetico,  written 
about  1606  by  the  Spanish  poet  Juan  de  la  Cueva, 
is  a  good  illustration,  not  only  of  the  general  influ- 
ence of  the  Italians  on  Spanish  criticism,  but  of  the 
high  reverence  in  which  the  individual  Italian 
critics  were  held  by  Spanish  men  of  letters :  — 

"  De  los  primeros  tiene  Horacio  el  puesto, 
En  numeros  y  estilo  soberano, 
Qual  en  su  Arte  al  mundo  es  manifesto. 
Escaligero  [i.e.  Scaliger]  hace  el  paso  llano 
Con  general  ensenamiento  y  guia, 

Lo  mismo  el  docto  Cintio  [i.e.  Giraldi  Cintio]  y  Biperano.^ 
Maranta  2  es  egemplar  de  la  Poesia, 
Vida  el  norte,  Pontano  *  el  ornamento, 

La  luz  Minturno  qual  el  sol  del  dia 

Acuden  todos  a  colmar  sus  vasos 

1  Viperano,  author  of  De  Poetica  libri  tres,  Antwerp,  1579. 

2  Maranta,  author  of  Lucullanx  Quxstiones,  Basle,  1564. 

8  Three  writers  of  the  Renaissance  bore  this  name :  G.  Pon- 
tano, the  famous  Italian  humanist  and  Latin  poet,  who  died  in 
1503 ;  P.  Pontano,  of  Bruges,  the  author  of  an  Ars  Versijicatoria, 
published  in  1520;  and  J.  Pontanus,  a  Bohemian  Jesuit,  author 
of  Institutiones  Poetiese,  first  published  at  lugolstadt  iu  159i, 
and  several  times  reprinted. 


v.]  GROWTH  OF  THE   CLASSIC  SPIRIT         147 

Al  oceano  sacro  de  Stagira  [i.e.  Aristotle], 
Donde  se  afirman  los  dudosos  pasos, 
Se  etemiza  la  trompa  y  tiema  lira."  i 

The  influence  of  the  Italians  was  equally  great 
in  Germany.  From  Fabricius  to  Opitz,  the  criti- 
cal ideas  of  Germany  were  almost  all  borrowed, 
directly  or  indirectly,  from  Italian  sources.  Fabri- 
cius  in  his  De  Re  Poetica  (1584)  acknowledges  his 
indebtedness  to  Minturno,  Partenio,  Pontanus,  and 
others,  but  above  all  to  Scaliger ;  and  most  of  the 
critical  ideas  by  which  Opitz  renovated  modern  Ger- 
man literature  go  back  to  Italian  sources,  through 
Scaliger,  Ronsard,  and  Daniel  Heinsius.  No  better 
illustration  of  the  influence  of  the  Italian  critics 
upon  European  letters  could  be  afforded  than  that 
given  by  Opitz's  Bach  von  der  deutschen  Poeterei} 

The  influence  of  Italian  criticism  on  the  critical 
literature  of  Prance  and  England  will  be  more  or 
less  treated  in  the  remaining  portions  of  this  essay. 
It  may  be  noted  here,  however,  that  in  the  critical 
writings  of  Lessing  there  is  represented  the  climax 
of  the  Italian  tradition  in  European  letters,  espe- 
cially on  the  side  of  Aristotelianism.  Shelley  repre- 
sents a  similar  culmination  of  the  Italian  tradition 
in  England.     His  indebtedness  to  Sidney  and  Mil- 

1  Sedano,  Parnaso  Espanol,  Madrid,  1774,  yiii.  40,  41. 

2  Cf.  Berghoeffer,  Opitz'  Buck  von  der  Poeterei,  1888,  and 
Beckherrn,  Opitz,  Ronsard,  und  Heinsius,  1888.  The  first  refer- 
ence to  Aristotle's  Poetics,  north  of  the  Alps,  is  to  be  found  in 
Luther's  Address  to  the  Christian  Nobles  of  the  German  Nation, 
1520.  Schosser's  Bisputationes  de  Tragosdia,  published  in  1559, 
two  years  before  Scaliger's  work  appeared,  is  entirely  based  on 
Aristotle's  Poetics. 


148  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY      [chap. 

ton,  who  represent  the  Italian  influence  in  the 
Elizabethan  age,  and  especially  to  Tasso,  whom  he 
continually  cites,  is  very  marked.  The  debt  of 
modern  literature  to  Italian  criticism  is  therefore 
not  slight.  In  the  half  century  between  Vida  and 
Castelvetro,  Italian  criticism  formulated  three 
things :  a  theory  of  poetry,  a  rigid  form  for  the 
epic,  and  a  rigid  form  for  the  drama.  These  rigid 
forms  for  drama  and  epic  governed  the  creative 
imagination  of  Europe  for  two  centuries,  and 
then  passed  away.  But  while  modern  aesthetics 
for  over  a  century  has  studied  the  processes  of 
art,  the  theory  of  poetry,  as  enunciated  by  the 
Italians  of  the  sixteenth  century,  has  not  dimin- 
ished in  value,  but  has  continued  to  pervade  the 
finer  minds  of  men  from  that  time  to  this. 

III.   nationalism 

The  rationalistic  temper  may  be  observed  in 
critical  literature  almost  at  the  very  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  This  spirit  of  rationalism 
is  observable  throughout  the  Renaissance  ;  and  its 
general  causes  may  be  looked  for  in  the  liberation 
of  the  human  reason  by  the  Renaissance,  in  the 
growth  of  the  sciences  and  arts,  and  in  the  reac- 
tion against  mediaeval  sacerdotalism  and  dogma. 
The  causes  of  its  development  in  literary  criticism 
may  be  found  not  only  in  these  but  in  several  other 
influences  of  the  period.  The  paganization  of  cul- 
ture, the  growth  of  rationalistic  philosophies,  with 
their  all-pervading  influence  on  arts  and  letters,  and 


v.]  GROWTH  OF  THE   CLASSIC   SPIRIT         149 

moreover  the  influence  of  Horace's  Ars  Poetica^ 
witli  its  ideal  of  "  good  sense/'  all  tended  to  make 
the  element  of  reason  predominate  in  literature  and 
in  literary  criticism. 

In  Vida  the  three  elements  which  are  at  the 
bottom  of  classicism,  the  imitation  of  the  classics, 
the  imitation  of  nature,  and  the  authority  of  reason, 
may  all  be  found.  E-eason  is  for  him  the  final  test 
of  all  things :  — 

"  Semper  nutu  rationis  eant  res."  ^ 

The  function  of  the  reason  in  art  is,  first,  to  serve 
as  a  standard  in  the  choice  and  carrying  out  of  the 
design,  a  bulwark  against  the  operation  of  mere 
chance,^  and  secondly,  to  moderate  the  expression 
of  the  poet's  own  personality  and  passion,  a  bul- 
wark against  the  morbid  subjectivity  which  is  the 
horror  of  the  classical  temperament.^ 

It  has  been  said  of  Scaliger  that  he  was  the  first 
modern  to  establish  in  a  body  of  doctrine  the 
principal  consequences  of  the  sovereignty  of  the 
reason  in  literature.^  That  was  hardly  his  aim,  and 
certainly  not  his  attainment.  But  he  was,  at  all 
events,  one  of  the  first  modern  critics  to  affirm  that 
there  is  a  standard  of  perfection  for  each  specific 
form  of  literature,  to  show  that  this  standard  may 
be  arrived  at  a  priori  through  the  reason,  and  to 
attempt  a  formulation  of  such  standard  for  each 
literary  form.     "Est  in  omni  rerum  genere  unum 

1  Pope,  i.  155. 

2  Loc.  cit.,  beginning,  "Nee  te  fors  inopina  regat." 

3  Pope,  i.  164,  beginning,  "  Ne  tamen  ah  nimium." 
*  Lintilhac,  in  Nouvelle  Revue,  Ixiv.  543. 


150  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN   ITALY       [chap. 

primum  ac  rectum  ad  cuius  turn  normam,  turn  ratio 
nem  csetera  dirigenda  sunt,"  ^  This,  the  funda- 
mental assumption  of  Scaliger's  Poetics,  is  also  one 
of  the  basic  ideas  of  classicism.  Not  only  is  there 
a  standard,  a  norm,  in  every  species  of  literature, 
but  this  norm  can  be  definitely  formulated  and  de- 
fined by  means  of  the  reason ;  and  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  critic  to  formulate  this  norm,  and  the  duty  of 
the  poet  to  study  and  follow  it  without  deviating 
from  the  norm  in  any  way.  Even  Homer,  as  we 
have  seen,  is  to  be  judged  according  to  this  stan- 
dard arrived  at  through  the  reason.  Such  a  method 
cuts  off  all  possibility  of  novelty  of  form  or  expres- 
sion, and  holds  every  poet,  ancient  or  modern,  great 
or  small,  accountable  to  one  and  the  same  standard 
of  perfection. 

The  growth  and  influence  of  rationalism  in  Ital- 
ian criticism  may  be  best  observed  by  the  gradual 
effect  which  its  development  had  on  the  element 
of  Aristotelianism.  In  other  words,  rationalism 
changed  the  point  of  view  according  to  which  the 
Aristotelian  canons  were  regarded  in  the  Italian 
Renaissance.  The  earlier  Italian  critics  accepted 
their  rules  and  precepts  on  the  authority  of  Aris- 
totle alone.  Thus  Trissino,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fifth  section  of  his  Poetica,  finished  in  1549,  al- 
though begun  about  twenty  years  before,  says,  "I 
shall  not  depart  from  the  rules  and  precepts  of  the 
ancients,  and  especially  Aristotle."  -  Somewhat 
later,  in  1553,  Varchi  says,  "  Reason  and  Aristotle 
are  my  two  guides."  ^  Here  the  element  of  the 
1  Scaliger,  Poet,  iii.  11.        2  Trissino,  ii.  92.        »  Varchi,  p.  600. 


v.]  GKOWTH  OF  THE   CLASSIC   SPIRIT         151 

reason  first  asserts  itself,  but  there  is  no  intimation 
that  the  Aristotelian  canons  are  in  themselves 
reasonable.  The  critic  has  two  guides,  the  individ- 
ual reason  and  the  Aristotelian  rules,  and  each  of 
these  two  guides  is  to  serve  wherever  the  other  is 
found  wanting.  This  same  point  of  view  is  found 
a  decade  later  in  Tasso,  who  says  that  the  defenders 
of  the  unity  of  the  epic  poem  have  made  "  a  sliield 
of  the  authority  of  Aristotle,  nor  do  they  lack  the 
arms  afforded  by  the  reason ; "  ^  and  similarly,  in 
1583,  Sir  Philip  Sidney  says  that  the  unity  of  time 
is  demanded  "both  by  Aristotle's  precept  and 
common  reason."  ^  Here  both  Tasso  and  Sidney, 
while  contending  that  the  particular  law  under  dis- 
cussion is  in  itself  reasonable,  speak  of  Aristotle's 
Poetics  and  the  reason  as  separate  and  distinct 
authorities,  and  fail  to  show  that  Aristotle  himself 
based  all  his  precepts  upon  the  reason.  In  Denores, 
a  few  years  later,  the  development  is  carried  one 
stage  farther  in  the  direction  of  the  ultimate  classi- 
cal attitude,  as  when  he  speaks  of  "  reason  and 
Aristotle's  Poetics,  which  is  indeed  founded  on 
naught  save  reason."  ^  This  is  as  far  as  Italian 
criticism  ever  went.  It  was  the  function  of  neo- 
classicism  in  France,  as  will  be  seen,  to  show  that 
such  a  phrase  as  "  reason  and  Aristotle  "  is  a  con- 
tradiction in  itself,  that  the  Aristotelian  canons 
and  the  reason  are  ultimately  reducible  to  the  same 
thing,  and   that  not  only  what  is  in  Aristotle  will 

1  Tasso,  xii.  217. 

2  Defense  of  Poesy,  p.  48. 

3  Discorso,  1587,  p.  39  v. 


152  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN  ITALY       [chap. 

be  found  reasonable,  but  all  that  reason  dictates  for 
literary  observance  will  be  found  in  Aristotle. 

Rationalism  produced  several  very  important  re- 
sults in  literature  and  literary  criticism  during  the 
sixteenth  century.  In  the  first  place,  it  tended  to 
give  the  reason  a  higher  place  in  literature  than  im- 
agination or  sensibility.  Poetry,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, was  often  classified  by  Eenaissance  critics 
as  one  of  the  logical  sciences ;  and  nothing  could 
be  in  greater  accord  with  the  neo-classical  ideal 
than  the  assertion  of  Varchi  and  others  that  the 
better  logician  the  poet  is,  the  better  he  will  be  as 
a  poet.  Sainte-Beuve  gives  Scaliger  the  credit  of 
having  first  formulated  this  theory  of  literature 
which  subordinates  the  creative  imagination  and 
poetic  sensibility  to  the  reason ;  ^  but  the  credit  or 
discredit  of  originating  it  does  not  belong  exclu- 
sively to  Scaliger.  This  tendency  toward  the  apo- 
theosis of  the  reason  was  diffused  throughout  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  does  not  characterize  any  in- 
dividual author.  The  Italian  critics  of  this  period 
were  the  first  to  formulate  the  classical  ideal  that 
the  standard  of  perfection  may  be  conceived  of  by 
the  reason,  and  that  perfection  is  to  be  attained 
only  by  the  realization  of  this  standard. 

The  rationalistic  spirit  also  tended  to  set  the  seal 
of  disapprobation  on  extravagances  of  any  sort. 
Subjectivity  and  individualism  came  to  be  regarded 
more  and  more,  at  least  in  theory,  as  out  of  keep- 
ing with  classical  perfection.  Clearness,  reasonable- 
ness, sociableness,  were  the  highest  requirements 
1  Causeries  du  Lumli,  iii.  44. 


V.J  GROWTH   OF   THE   CLASSIC   SPIRIT  153 

of  art;  and  any  excessive  expression  of  the  poet's 
individuality  was  entirely  disapproved  of.  Man, 
not  only  as  a  reasonable  being,  but  also  as  a  social 
being,  was  regarded  as  the  basis  of  literature. 
Boileau's  lines :  — 

"  Que  les  vers  ne  soient  pas  votre  6temel  emploi ; 
Cultivez  vos  amis,  soyez  homme  de  foi ; 
C'est  peu  d'etre  agr^able  et  charmant  dans  tm  livre, 
n  f aut  savoir  encore  et  converser  et  vivre,"  i 

were  anticipated  in  Berni's  Dialogo  contra  i  Poeti, 
written  in  1526,  though  not  published  until  1537. 
This  charming  invective  is  directed  against  the 
fashionable  literature  of  the  time,  and  especially 
against  all  professional  poets.  Writing  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  polished  and  rationalistic  society, 
Berni  lays  great  stress  on  the  fact  that  poetry  is 
not  to  be  taken  too  seriously,  that  it  is  a  pastime, 
a  recreation  for  cultured  people,  a  mere  bagatelle ; 
and  he  professes  to  despise  those  who  spend  all 
their  time  in  writing  verses.  The  vanity,  the  use- 
lessness,  the  extravagances,  and  the  ribaldry  of  the 
professional  poets  receive  his  hearty  contempt; 
only  those  who  write  verses  for  pastime  merit  ap- 
probation. "Are  you  so  stupid,"  he  cries,  "as  to 
think  that  I  call  any  one  who  writes  verses  a 
poet,  and  that  I  regard  such  men  as  Vida,  Pon- 
tano,  Bembo,  Sannazaro,  as  mere  poets  ?  I  do 
not  call  any  one  a  poet,  and  condemn  him  as 
such,  unless  he  does  nothing  but  write  verses,  and 
wretched  ones  at  that,  and  is  good  for  nothing 
else.  But  the  men  I  have  mentioned  are  not 
1  Art  Poet.  iv.  121. 


154  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY    [chap.  v. 

poets  by  profession."^  Here  the  sentiments  ex- 
pressed are  those  of  a  refined,  and  social  age,  — 
the  age  of  Louis  XIV.  no  less  than  that  of  Leo  X. 
The  irreligious  character  of  neo-classic  art  may 
also  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  consequences  of  this 
rationalistic  temper.  The  combined  effect  of  hu- 
manism, essentially  pagan,  and  rationalism,  essen- 
tially sceptical,  was  not  favorable  to  the  growth 
of  religious  feeling  in  literature.  Classicism,  the 
result  of  these  two  tendencies,  became  more  and 
more  rationalistic,  more  and  more  pagan;  and  in 
consequence,  religious  poetry  in  any  real  sense 
ceased  to  flourish  wherever  the  more  stringent  forms 
of  classicism  prevailed.  In  Boileau  these  tenden- 
cies result  in  a  certain  distinct  antagonism  to  the 
very  forms  of  Christianity  in  literature :  — 

♦*  C'est  done  bien  vainement  que  nos  auteurs  d^Qus, 
Bannissant  de  leurs  vers  ces  ornemens  re^us, 
Pensent  faire  agir  Dieu,  ses  saints  et  ses  prophfetes, 
Comme  ces  dieux  ^clos  du  cerveau  des  poetes ; 
Mettent  k  cliaque  pas  le  lecteur  en  enf  er  ; 
N'offrent  rien  qu'Astaroth,  Belz^buth,  Lucifer. 
De  la  foi  d'un  Chretien  les  mystferes  terribles 
D'ornemens  6gay6s  ne  sont  point  susceptibles  ; 
L'^fevangile  ci  I'esprit  u'offre  de  tous  c6t6s 
Que  penitence  k  faire  et  tourmens  m^rit^s  ; 
Et  de  vos  fictions  le  melange  coupable 
Meme  k  ses  v^rit^s  donne  I'air  de  la  fable."  ' 

1  Berni,  p.  249. 

'  Art  Poet.  iii.  193.    Cf.  Dryden,  Discourse  on  Satire,  in 
Works,  xiii.  23  sq. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ROMANTIC  ELEMENTS   IN    ITALIAN    CRITICISM 

In  the  Italian  critical  literature  of  the  sixteenth 
century  there  are  to  be  found  the  germs  of  ro- 
mantic as  well  as  classical  criticism.  The  develop- 
ment of  romanticism  in  Renaissance  criticism  is 
due  to  various  tendencies,  of  ancient,  of  mediaeval, 
and  of  modern  origin.  The  ancient  element  is 
Platonism ;  the  mediaeval  elements  are  Christian- 
ity, and  the  influence  of  the  literary  forms  and 
the  literary  subject-matter  of  the  Middle  Ages; 
and  the  modern  elements  are  the  growth  of  na- 
tional life  and  national  literatures,  and  the  oppo- 
sition of  modern  philosophy  to  Aristotelianism. 

I.    The  Ancient  Romantic  Element 

As  the  element  of  reason  is  the  predominant 
feature  of  neo-classicism,  so  the  element  of  im- 
agination is  the  predominant  feature  of  roman- 
ticism; and  according  as  the  reason  or  the  im- 
agination predominates  in  Renaissance  literature, 
there  results  neo-classicism  or  romanticism,  while 
the  most  perfect  art  finds  a  reconciliation  of  both 
elements  in  the  imaginative  reason.  According 
155 


156  LITERARY   CRITICISM  IN  ITALY      [chap. 

to  the  faculty  of  reason,  wlien  made  the  basis  of 
literature,  the  poet  is,  as  it  were,  held  down  to 
earth,  and  art  becomes  the  mere  reasoned  expres- 
sion of  the  truth  of  life.  By  the  faculty  of  im- 
agination, the  poet  is  made  to  create  a  new  world 
of  his  own,  —  a  world  in  which  his  genius  is  free 
to  mould  whatever  its  imagination  takes  hold  of. 
This  romantic  doctrine  of  the  freedom  of  genius, 
of  inspiration  and  the  power  of  imagination,  in 
so  far  as  it  forms  a  part  of  Renaissance  criticism, 
owes  its  origin  to  Platonism.  The  influence  of 
the  Platonic  doctrines  among  the  humanists  has 
already  been  alluded  to.  Plato  was  regarded  by 
them  as  their  leader  in  the  struggle  against  medi- 
sevalism,  scholasticism,  and  Aristotelianism.  The 
Aristotelian  dialectic  of  the  Middle  Ages  appealed 
exclusively  to  the  reason;  Platonism  gave  oppor- 
tunities for  the  imagination  to  soar  to  vague  and 
sublime  heights,  and  harmonize  with  the  divine 
mysteries  of  the  universe.  As  regards  poetry  and 
imaginative  literature  in  general,  the  critics  of  the 
Renaissance  appealed  from  the  Plato  of  the  Re- 
public and  the  Laws  to  the  Plato  of  the  Ion,  the 
Phcedrus,  and  the  Symposium.  Beauty  being  the 
subject-matter  of  art,  Plato's  praise  of  beauty  was 
transferred  by  the  Renaissance  to  poetry,  and  his 
praise  of  the  philosopher  was  transferred  to  the 
poet. 

The  Aristotelian  doctrine  defines  beauty  accord- 
ing to  its  relations  to  the  external  world ;  that  is, 
poetry  is  an  imitation  of  nature,  expressed  in  gen- 
eral  terms.     The   Platonic   doctrine,   on   the  con- 


VI.]  ROMANTIC   ELEMENTS  157 

trary,  is  concerned  with  poetry,  or  beauty,  in  so 
far  as  it  concerns  the  poet's  own  nature ;  that  is, 
the  poet  is  divinely  inspired  and  is  a  creator  like 
God.  Fracastoro,  as  has  been  seen,  makes  the  Pla- 
tonic rapture,  the  delight  in  the  true  and  essential 
beauty  of  things,  the  true  tests  of  poetic  power. 
In  introducing  this  Platonic  ideal  of  poetic  beauty 
into  modern  literary  criticism,  he  defines  and  dis- 
tinguishes poetry  according  to  a  subjective  crite- 
rion; and  it  is  according  to  whether  the  objective 
or  the  subjective  conception  of  art  is  insisted  upon, 
that  we  have  the  classic  spirit  or  the  romantic 
spirit.  The  extreme  romanticists,  like  the  Schle- 
gels  and  their  contemporaries  in  Germany,  entirely 
eliminate  the  relation  of  poetry  to  the  external 
world,  and  in  this  extreme  form  romanticism  be- 
comes identified  with  the  exaggerated  subjective 
idealism  of  Fichte  and  Schelling.  The  extreme 
classicists  entirely  eliminate  the  poet's  personality ; 
that  is,  poetry  is  merely  reasoned  expression,  a 
perfected  expression  of  what  all  men  can  see  in 
nature,  for  the  poet  has  no  more  insight  into  life 
—  no  more  imagination  —  than  any  ordinary,  judi- 
cious person. 

The  effects  of  this  Platonic  element  upon  Renais- 
sance criticism  were  various.  In  the  first  place,  it 
was  through  the  Platonic  influence  that  the  relation 
of  beauty  to  poetry  was  first  made  prominent.^  Ac- 
cording to  Scaliger,  Tasso,  Sidney,  another  world  of 
beauty  is  created  by  the  poet,  —  a  world  that 
possesses  beauty  in  its  perfection  as  this  world 
^De  Sanctis,  ii.  193  sq. 


168  LITERARY   CRITICISM  IN   ITALY       [chap. 

never  can.  The  reason  alone  leaves  no  place  for 
beauty;  and  accordingly,  for  the  neo-classicists,  art 
was  ultimately  restricted  to  moral  and  psychologi- 
cal observation.  Moreover,  Platonism  raised  the 
question  of  the  freedom  of  genius  and  of  the  imagi- 
nation. Of  all  men,  only  the  poet,  as  Sidney  and 
others  pointed  out,  is  bound  down  and  restricted  by 
no  laws.  But  if  poetry  is  a  matter  of  inspiration, 
how  can  it  be  called  an  art  ?  If  genius  alone  suf- 
fices, what  need  is  there  of  study  and  artifice  ? 
For  the  extreme  romanticists  of  this  period,  genius 
alone  was  accounted  sufficient  to  produce  the  great- 
est works  of  poetry;  for  the  extreme  classicists, 
studious  and  labored  art  unaided  by  genius  fulfilled 
all  the  functions  of  poetic  creation;  but  most  of 
the  critics  of  the  sixteenth  century  seem  to  have 
agreed  with  Horace  that  genius,  or  an  inborn  apti- 
tude, is  necessary  to  begin  with,  but  that  it  needs 
art  and  study  to  regulate  and  perfect  it.  Genius 
cannot  suffice  without  restraint  and  cultivation. 

Scaliger,  curiously,  reconciles  both  classic  and 
romantic  elements.  The  poet,  according  to  Scaliger, 
is  inspired,  is  in  fact  a  creator  like  God ;  but  poetry 
is  an  imitation  (that  is,  re-creation)  of  nature,  ac- 
cording to  certain  fixed  rules  obtained  from  the 
observation  of  the  anterior  expression  of  nature  in 
great  art.  It  is  these  rules  that  make  poetry  an 
art ;  and  these  rules  form  a  distinct  neo-classic  ele- 
ment imposed  on  the  Aristotelian  doctrine. 


VI.]  ROMANTIC   ELEMENTS  159 

II.   Ifedioeval  Elements 

The  Middle  Ages  contributed  to  the  poetic 
ideal  of  the  Renaissance  two  elements :  romantic 
themes  and  the  Christian  spirit.  The  forms  and 
subjects  of  mediaeval  literature  are  distinctly  ro- 
mantic. Dante's  Divine  Comedy  is  an  allegorical 
vision ;  it  is  almost  unique  in  form,  and  has  no 
classical  prototype.^  The  tendency  of  Petrarchism 
was  also  in  the  direction  of  romanticism.  Its 
"conceits  "  and  its  subjectivity  led  to  an  unclassical 
extravagance  of  thought  and  expression;  and  the 
Petrarchistic  influence  made  lyric  poetry,  and  ac- 
cordingly the  criticism  of  lyric  poetry,  more  roman- 
tic than  any  other  form  of  literature  or  literary 
criticism  during  the  period  of  classicism.  It  was 
for  this  reason  that  there  was  little  lyricism  in  the 
classical  period,  not  only  in  France,  but  wherever 
the  classic  temper  predominated.  The  themes  of 
the  romanzi  are  also  mediaeval  and  romantic;  but 
while  they  are  mediaeval  contributions  to  literature,^ 
they  became  contributions  to  literary  criticism 
only  after  the  growth  of  national  life  and  the  de- 
velopment of  the  feeling  of  nationality,  both  dis- 
tinctly modern. 

Some  reference  has  already  been  made  to  the 
paganization  of  culture  by  the  humanists.  But 
with  the  growth  of  that  revival  of  Christian  sen- 
timent which  led  to  the  Eeformation,  there  were 
numerous  attempts  to  reconcile  Christianity   with 

1  Cf.  Bosanquet,  Hist,  of  Esthetic,  p.  152  sq. 

2  Cf.  Foffano,  p.  151  sq. 


160  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

pagan  culture.^  Such  men  as  Ficino  and  Pico  della 
Miraudola  attempted  to  harmonize  Christianity  and 
Platonic  philosophy ;  and  under  the  great  patron  of 
letters,  Pope  Leo  X.,  there  were  various  attempts 
to  harmonize  Christianity  with  the  classic  spirit  in 
literature.  In  such  poems  as  Vida's  Christiad  and 
Sanna2;aro's  De  Partu  Virginis,  Christianity  is  cov- 
ered with  the  drapery  of  paganism  or  classicism. 

The  first  reaction  against  this  paganization  of  cul- 
ture was,  as  has  been  seen,  effected  by  Savonarola. 
This  reaction  was  reenforced,  in  the  next  century, 
by  the  influence  and  authority  of  the  Council  of 
Trent ;  and  after  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury the  Christian  ideal  plays  a  prominent  part 
in  literary  criticism.  The  spirit  of  both  Giraldi 
Cintio  and  Minturno  is  distinctly  Christian.  For 
Giraldi  the  romanzi  are  Christian,  and  hence  supe- 
rior to  the  classical  epics.  He  allows  the  introduc- 
tion of  pagan  deities  only  into  epics  dealing  with 
the  ancient  classical  subjects ;  but  Tasso  goes 
further,  and  says  that  no  modern  heroic  poet  should 
have  anything  to  do  with  them.  According  to 
Tasso,  the  heroes  of  an  heroic  poem  must  be  Chris- 
tian knights,  and  the  poem  itself  must  deal  with  a 
true,  not  a  false,  religion.  The  subject  is  not  to  be 
connected  with  any  article  of  Christian  faith  or 
dogma,  because  that  was  fixed  by  the  Council  of 
Trent ;  but  paganism  in  any  form  is  altogether  un- 
fit for  a  modern  epic.  Tasso  even  goes  so  far  as  to 
assert  that  piety  shall  be  numbered  among  the 
virtues  of  the  knightly  heroes  of  epic  poetry. 
1  Symonds,  ii.  470. 


VI.]  ROMANTIC   ELEMENTS  161 

At  tlie  same  time  also,  Lorenzo  Gambara  wrote  his 
work,  De  Perfecta  Poeseos  Ratione,  to  prove  tliat  it 
is  essential  for  every  poet  to  exclude  from  his 
poems,  not  only  everything  that  is  wicked  or  ob- 
scene, but  also  everything  that  is  fabulous  or  that 
deals  with  pagan  divinities.^  It  was  to  this  reli- 
gious reaction  that  we  owe  the  Christian  poetry  of 
Tasso,  Du  Bartas,  and  Spenser.  But  humanism 
was  strong,  and  rationalism  was  rife;  and  the  re- 
ligious revival  was  hardly  more  than  temporary. 
Neo-classicism  throughout  Europe  was  essentially 
pagan. 

III.  Modern  Elements 

The  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages  constitutes,  as 
it  were,  one  vast  body  of  European  literature ;  only 
with  the  Renaissance  did  distinctly  national  litera- 
tures spring  into  existence.  Nationalism  as  well  as 
individualism  was  subsequent  to  the  Renaissance ; 
and  it  was  at  this  period  that  the  growth  of  a 
national  literature,  of  national  life,  —  in  a  word, 
patriotism  in  its  widest  sense,  —  was  first  effected. 

The  linguistic  discussions  and  controversies  of 
the  sixteenth  century  prepared  the  way  for  a  higher 
appreciation  of  national  languages  and  literatures.. 
These  controversies  on  the  comparative  merits  of 
the  classical  and  vernacular  tongues  had  begun  in 
the  time  of  Dante,  and  were  continued  in  the  six- 
teenth century  by  Bembo,  Castiglione,  Varchi,  Muzio, 
Tolomei,  and  many  others ;  and  in  1564  Salviati 
summed  up  the  Italian  side  of  the  question  in  an 

1  Baillet,  iii.  70. 
M 


162  LITEKARY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY      [chap. 

oration  in  which  he  asserted  that  the  Tuscan,  or,  as 
he  called  it,  the  Florentine  language  and  the  Flor- 
entine literature  are  vastly  superior  to  any  other 
language  or  literature,  whether  ancient  or  modern. 
However  extravagant  this  claim  may  appear,  the 
mere  fact  that  Salviati  made  such  a  claim  at  all  is 
enough  to  give  him  a  place  worthy  of  serious  con- 
sideration in  the  history  of  Italian  literature.  The 
other  side  of  the  controversy  finds  its  extremest 
expression  in  a  treatise  of  Celio  Calcagnini  ad- 
dressed to  Giraldi  Cintio,  in  which  the  hope  is 
expressed  that  the  Italian  language,  and  all  the 
literature  composed  in  that  language,  would  be 
absolutely  abandoned  by  the  world.^ 

In  Giraldi  Cintio  we  find  the  first  traces  of  purely 
national  criticism.  His  purpose,  in  writing  the 
discourse  on  the  romanzi,  was  primarily  to  defend 
Ariosto,  whom  he  had  known  personally  in  his 
youth.  The  point  of  view  from  which  he  starts  is 
that  the  romanzi  constitute  a  new  form  of  poetry 
of  which  Aristotle  did  not  know,  and  to  which, 
therefore,  Aristotle's  rules  do  not  apply.  Giraldi 
regarded  the  romantic  poems  of  Ariosto  and  Boi- 
ardo  both  as  national  and  as  Christian  works ;  and 
Italian  literature  is  thus  for  the  first  time  critically 
distinguished  from  classical  literature  in  regard  to 
language,  religion,  and  nationality.  In  Giraldi's 
discourse  there  is  no  apparent  desire  either  to  un- 
derrate or  to  disregard  the  Poetics  of  Aristotle ;  the 
fact  was  simply  that  Aristotle  had  not  known  the 
poems  which  deal  with  many  actions  of  many  men, 
1  Tiraboschi,  vii.  1559. 


VI.]  ROMANTIC   ELEMENTS  163 

and  hence  it  would  be  absurd  to  demand  that  such 
poems  should  conform  to  his  rules.  The  romanzi 
deal  with  phases  of  poetry,  and  phases  of  life, 
which  Aristotle  could  not  be  expected  to  understand. 

A  similar  feeling  of  the  distinct  nationality  of 
Italian  literature  is  to  be  found  in  many  of  the 
prefaces  of  the  Italian  comedies  of  this  period.  II 
Lasca,  in  the  preface  of  the  Strega  (c.  1555),  says 
that  "  Aristotle  and  Horace  knew  their  own  times, 
but  ours  are  not  the  same  at  all.  AVe  have  other 
manners,  another  religion,  and  another  mode  of 
life;  and  it  is  therefore  necessary  to  make  come- 
dies after  a  different  fashion."  As  early  as  1534, 
Aretino,  in  the  prologue  of  his  Cortegiana,  warned 
his  audience  "not  to  be  astonished  if  the  comic 
style  is  not  observed  in  the  manner  required,  for 
we  live  after  a  different  fashion  in  modern  Rome 
than  they  did  in  ancient  Athens."  Similarly,  Gelli, 
in  the  dedication  of  the  Sporta  (1543),  justifies  the 
use  of  language  not  to  be  found  in  the  great  sources 
of  Italian  speech,  on  the  ground  that  "language, 
together  with  all  other  natural  things,  continually 
varies  and  changes."  ^ 

Although  there  is  in  Giraldi  Cintio  no  fundamen- 
tal opposition  to  Aristotle,  it  is  in  his  discourse  on 
the  romanzi  that  there  may  be  found  the  first  at- 
tempt to  wrest  a  province  of  art  from  Aristotle's 
supreme  authority.  Neither  Salviati,  who  had 
rated  the  Italian  language  above  all  others,  nor 
Calcagnini,  who  had  regarded  it  as  the  meanest  of 

1  Several  similar  extracts  from  Italian  comic  prologues  may 
be  found  in  Symonds,  v.  533  sq. 


164  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ITALY       [chap. 

all,  had  understood  the  discussion  of  the  impor- 
tance of  the  Tuscan  tongue  to  be  coucerned  with 
the  question  of  Aristotle's  literary  supremacy.  It 
was  simply  a  national  question  —  a  question  as  to  the 
national  limits  of  Aristotle's  authority,  just  as  was 
the  case  in  the  several  controversies  connected  with 
Tasso,  Dante,  and  Guarini's  Pastor  Fido}  Castel- 
vetro,  in  his  commentary  on  the  Poetics,  differs 
from  Aristotle  on  many  occasions,  and  does  not 
hesitate  even  to  refute  him.  Yet  his  reverence  for 
Aristotle  is  great;  his  sense  of  Aristotle's  supreme 
authority  is  strong;  and  on  one  occasion,  where 
Horace,  Quintilian,  and  Cicero  seem  to  differ  from 
Aristotle,  Castelvetro  does  not  hesitate  to  assert 
that  they  could  not  have  seen  the  passage  of  the 
Poetics  in  question,  and  that,  in  fact,  they  did  not 
thoroughly  understand  the  true  constitution  of  a 
poet.^ 

The  opposition  to  Aristotelianism  among  the 
humanists  has  already  been  alluded  to.  This  op- 
position increased  more  and  more  with  the  develop- 
ment of  modern  philosophy.  In  1536  Ramus  had 
attacked  Aristotle's  authority  at  Paris.  A  few 
years  later,  in  1543,  Ortensio  Landi,  who  had  been 
at  the  Court  of  France  for  some  time,  published  his 
Paradossi,  in  which  it  is  contended  that  the  works 
which  pass  under  the  name  of  Aristotle  are  not 
really  Aristotle's  at  all,  and  that  Aristotle  himself 
was  not  only  an  ignoramus,  but  also  the  most  vil- 
lanous  man  of  his  age.  "  We  have,  of  our  own 
accord,"  he  says, ''  placed  our  necks  under  the  yoke, 
1  Foffano,  p.  154  sq.  «  Poctica,  p.  32. 


VI.]  ROMANTIC  ELEMENTS  165 

putting  that  vile  beast  of  an  Aristotle  on  a  throne, 
and  depending  on  his  conclusions  as  if  he  were  an 
oracle."  ^  It  is  the  philosophical  authority  of  Aris- 
totle that  Landi  is  attacking.  His  attitude  is  not 
that  of  a  humanist,  for  Cicero  and  Boccaccio  do  not 
receive  more  respectful  treatment  at  his  hands  than 
Aristotle  does.  Landi,  despite  his  mere  eccentrici- 
ties, represents  the  growth  of  modern  free  thought 
and  the  antagonism  of  modern  philosophy  to  Aris- 
totelianism. 

The  literary  opposition  and  the  philosophical  op- 
position to  Aristotelianism  may  be  said  to  meet  in 
Francesco  Patrizzi,  and,  in  a  less  degree,  in  Gior- 
dano Bruno.  Patrizzi's  bitter  Antiperipateticism  is 
to  be  seen  in  his  Nova  de  Universis  Philosophia 
(1591),  in  which  the  doctrines  of  Aristotle  are 
shown  to  be  false,  inconsistent,  and  even  opposed 
to  the  doctrines  of  the  Catholic  Church.  His  liter- 
ary antagonism  to  Aristotle  is  shown  in  his  remark- 
able work,  Delia  Poetica,  published  at  Ferrara  in 
1586.  This  work  is  divided  into  two  parts,  —  the  first 
historical,  La  Deca  Istoriale,  and  the  second  contro- 
versial. La  Deca  Disputata.  In  the  historical  sec- 
tion he  attempts  to  derive  the  norm  of  the  differ- 
ent poetic  forms,  not  from  one  or  two  great  works 
as  Aristotle  had  done,  but  from  the  whole  history 
of  literature.  It  is  thus  the  first  work  in  modern 
times  to  attempt  the  philosophical  study  of  literary 
history,  and  to  trace  out  the  evolution  of  literary 
forms.  The  second  or  controversial  section  is  di- 
rected against  the  Poetics  of  Aristotle,  and  in  part 
1  Paradossi,  Veuetia,  1515,  ii.  29. 


166  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ITALY       [chap. 

also  against  the  critical  doctrines  of  Torquato 
Tasso.  In  this  portion  of  his  work  Patrizzi  sets  out 
to  demonstrate — per  istoria,  e  per  ragioni,  e  per 
autoritci  de'  grandi  anticJii  —  that  the  accepted  criti- 
cal opinions  of  his  time  were  without  foundation  ; 
and  the  Poetics  of  Aristotle  himself  he  exhibits 
as  obscure,  inconsistent,  and  entirely  unworthy  of 
credence. 

Similar  antagonism  to  the  critical  doctrines  of 
Aristotle  is  to  be  found  in  passages  scattered  here 
and  there  throughout  the  works  of  Giordano  Bruno. 
In  the  first  dialogue  of  the  Eroici  Furori,  published 
at  London  in  1585,  while  Bruno  was  visiting  Eng- 
land, he  expresses  his  contempt  for  the  mere  ped- 
ants who  judge  poets  by  the  rules  of  Aristotle's 
Poetics.  His  contention  is  that  there  are  as  many 
sorts  of  poets  as  there  are  human  sentiments  and 
ideas,  and  that  poets,  so  far  from  being  subservient 
to  rules,  are  themselves  really  the  authors  of  all 
critical  dogma.  Those  who  attack  the  great  poets 
whose  works  do  not  accord  with  the  rules  of  Aris- 
totle are  called  by  Bruno  stupid  pedants  and  beasts. 
The  gist  of  his  argument  may  be  gathered  from  the 
following  passage :  — 

"  Tans.  Thou  dost  well  conclude  that  poetry  is  not  born 
in  rules,  or  only  slightly  and  accidentally  so  ;  the  rules  are 
derived  from  the  poetry,  and  there  are  as  many  kinds  and 
sorts  of  true  rules  as  there  are  kinds  and  sorts  of  true  poets. 

Cic.   How  then  are  the  true  poets  to  be  known  ? 

Tans.  By  the  singing  of  their  verses  ;  in  that  singing 
they  give  delight,  or  they  edify,  or  they  edify  and  delight 
together. 


VI.]  EOM ANTIC  ELEMENTS  167 

Cic.   To  whom  then  are  the  rules  of  Aristotle  useful  ? 

Tans.  To  him  who,  unlike  Homer,  Hesiod,  Orpheus,  and 
others,  could  not  sing  without  the  rules  of  Aristotle,  and 
who,  having  no  Muse  of  his  own,  would  coquette  with  that 
of  Homer."  i 

A  similar  antagonism  to  Aristotle  and  a  similar 
literary  individualism  are  to  be  found  in  a  much 
later  work  by  Benedetto  Fioretti,  who  under  the 
pseudonym  of  Udeno  Nisieli  published  the  five  vol- 
umes of  his  Proginnasmi  Poetici  between  1620  and 
1639.^  Just  before  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, however,  the  Poetics  had  obtained  an  ardent 
defender  against  such  attacks  in  the  person  of 
Francesco  Buonamici,  in  his  Discorsi  Poetici;  and 
three  years  later,  in  1600,  Faustino  Summo  published 
a  similar  defence  of  Aristotle.  The  attacks  on 
Aristotle's  literary  dictatorship  were  of  little  avail ; 
it  was  hardly  necessary  even  to  defend  him.  For  two 
centuries  to  come  he  was  to  reign  supreme  on  the 
continent  of  Europe ;  and  in  Italy  this  supremacy 
was  hardly  disturbed  until  the  days  of  Goldoni 
and  Metastasio. 

1  Opere,  ii.  315  (Williams's  translation). 

2  Cf.  the  diverse  opinions  of  Tiraboschi,  viii.  516,  and  Hallam, 
Lit.  of  Europe,  pt.  iii.  ch.  7. 


Part   Second 

LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  FRANCE 


I 


LITERARY    CRITICISM    IN    FRANCE 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    CHARACTER    AND    DEVELOPMENT     OF     FRENCH 
CRITICISM    IN    THE    SIXTEENTH    CENTURY 

Literary  criticism  in  France,  while  beginning 
somewliat  later  than  in  Italy,  preceded  the  birth  of 
criticism  in  England  and  in  Spain  by  a  number  of 
years.  Critical  activity  in  nearly  all  the  countries 
of  western  Europe  seems  to  have  been  ushered  in 
by  the  translation  of  Horace's  Ars  Poetica  into  the 
vernacular  tongues.  Critical  activity  in  Italy  be- 
gan with  Dolce's  Italian  version  of  the  Ars  Poetica 
in  1535;  in  France,  with  the  French  version  of 
Pelletier  in  1545;  in  England,  with  the  English 
version  of  Drant  in  1567 ;  and  in  Spain,  with  the 
Spanish  versions  of  Espinel  and  Zapata  in  1591  and 
1592,  respectively.  Two  centuries  of  literary  dis- 
cussion had  prepared  the  way  for  criticism  in  Italy ; 
and  lacking  this  period  of  preparation,  French  criti- 
cism during  the  sixteenth  century  was  necessarily 
of  a  much  more  practical  character  than  that  of 
Italy  during  the  same  age.  The  critical  works  of 
France,  and  of  England  also,  were  on  the  whole 
designed  for  those  whose  immediate  intention  it 
171 


172         LITERARY   CRITICISM    IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

was  to  write  verse  themselves.  The  disinterested 
and  philosophic  treatment  of  aesthetic  problems, 
wholly  aside  from  all  practical  considerations,  char- 
acterized much  of  the  critical  activity  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance,  but  did  not  become  general  in  France 
until  the  next  century.  For  this  reason,  in  the 
French  and  English  sections  of  this  essay,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  deal  with  various  rhetorical  and 
metrical  questions  which  in  the  Italian  section 
could  be  largely  disregarded.  In  these  matters,  as  in 
the  more  general  questions  of  criticism,  it  will  be  seen 
that  sixteenth-century  Italy  furnished  the  source 
of  all  the  accepted  critical  doctrines  of  western 
Europe.  The  comparative  number  of  critical  works 
in  Italy  and  in  France  is  also  noteworthy.  While 
those  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  may  be  counted  by 
the  score,  the  literature  of  France  during  the  six- 
teenth century,  exclusive  of  a  few  purely  rhetorical 
treatises,  hardly  offers  more  than  a  single  dozen. 
It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  treatment  of 
French  criticism  must  be  more  limited  in  extent 
than  that  of  Italian  criticism,  and  somewhat  differ- 
ent in  character. 

The  literature  of  the  sixteenth  century  in  France 
is  divided  into  two  almost  equal  parts  by  Du 
Bellay's  Defense  et  Illustratioyi  de  la  Langxie  fran- 
gaise,  published  in  1549.  In  no  other  country  of 
Europe  is  the  transition  from  the  Middle  Ages  to 
the  Renaissance  so  clearly  marked  as  it  is  in  France 
by  this  single  book.  With  the  invasion  of  Italy  by 
the  army  of  Charles  VIII.  in  1494,  the  influence  of 
Italian  ai-t,  of  Italian  learning,  of  Italian  poetry. 


1.]      DEVELOPMENT  OF   FEENCH   CRITICISM     173 

had  received  its  first  impetus  in  France.  But  over 
half  a  century  was  to  elapse  before  the  effects  of 
this  influence  upon  the  creative  literature  of  France 
was  universally  and  powerfully  felt.  During  this 
period  the  activity  of  Budaeus,  Erasmus,  Dolet,  and 
numerous  other  French  and  foreign  humanists 
strengthened  the  cause  and  widened  the  influence 
of  the  New  Learning.  But  it  is  only  with  the  birth 
of  the  Pleiade  that  modern  French  literature  may 
be  said  to  have  begun.  In  1649  Du  Bellay's 
Defense,  the  manifesto  of  the  new  school,  appeared. 
Ronsard's  Odes  were  published  in  the  next  year; 
and  in  1552  Jodelle  inaugurated  French  tragedy 
with  liis  Cleopdtre,  and  first,  as  Ronsard  said, 

"  Frangoisement  chanta  la  grecque  trag^die." 

The  Defense  therefore  marks  a  distinct  epoch  in  the 
critical  as  well  as  the  creative  literature  of  France. 
The  critical  works  that  preceded  it,  if  they  may  be 
called  critical  in  any  real  sense,  did  not  attempt  to 
do  more  than  formulate  the  conventional  notions  of 
rhetorical  and  metrical  structure  common  to  the 
French  poets  of  the  later  Middle  Ages.  The 
Pleiade  itself,  as  will  be  more  clearly  understood 
later,  was  also  chiefly  concerned  with  linguistic  and 
rhetorical  reforms ;  and  as  late  as  1580  Montaigne 
could  say  that  there  were  more  poets  in  France 
than  judges  and  interpreters  of  poetry.^  The  crea- 
tive reforms  of  the  Pleiade  lay  largely  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  formation  of  a  poetic  language,  the 
introduction  of  new  genres,  the  creation  of  new 
1  Essais,  i.  36. 


174         LITERARY   CRITICISM  IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

rhythms,  and  the  imitation,  of  classical  literature. 
But  with  the  imitation  of  classical  literature  there 
came  the  renewal  of  the  ancient  subjects  of  inspira- 
tion; and  from  this  there  proceeded  a  high  and 
dignified  conception  of  the  poet's  office.  Indeed, 
many  of  the  more  general  critical  ideas  of  the 
Pleiade  spring  from  the  desire  to  justify  the  func- 
tion of  poetry,  and  to  magnify  its  importance.  The 
new  school  and  its  epigones  dominate  the  second 
half  of  the  sixteenth  century  ;  and  as  the  first  half 
of  the  century  was  practically  unproductive  of  criti- 
cal literature,  a  history  of  French  Renaissance 
criticism  is  hardly  more  than  an  account  of  the 
poetic  theories  of  the  Pleiade. 

The  series  of  rhetorical  and  metrical  treatises 
that  precede  Bu  Bellay's  Difense  begins  with  L'Art 
de  dictier  et  de  fere  changoyis,  halades,  virelais  et 
rondeaulx,  written  by  the  poet  Eustache  Deschamps 
in  1392,  over  half  a  century  after  the  similar  work 
of  Antonio  da  Tempo  in  Italy. ^  Toward  the  close 
of  the  fifteenth  century  a  work  of  the  same  nature, 
the  Fleur  de  Bhetorique,  by  an  author  who  refers  to 
himself  as  L'Infortune,  seems  to  have  had  some 
influence  on  later  treatises.  Three  works  of  this 
sort  fall  within  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury :  the  Grand  et  vrai  Art  de  pleine  RMtorique  of 
Pierre  Fabri,  published  at  Rouen  in  1521 ;  the 
R1i6torique  metrifiie  of  Gracien  du  Pont,  published 
at  Paris  in  1539 ;  and  the  Art  Po&tique  of  Thomas 
Sibilet,  published  at  Paris  in  1548.     The  second 

1  On  these  early  works,  see  Langlois,  De  Artibus  Rhetoricm 
Rhythmicx,  Parisiis,  1890. 


I.]      DEVELOPMENT   OF   FRENCH   CRITICISM     175 

part  of  Fabri's  RMtorique  deals  with,  questions  of 
versification  —  of  rhyme,  rhythm,  and  the  complex 
metrical  form  of  such  poets  as  Cretin,  Meschinot, 
and  Molinet,  in  whom  Pasquier  found  prou  cle  rime 
et  equivoque,  mais  peu  de  raison.  As  the  Rhetorique 
of  Fabri  is  little  more  than  an  amplification  of 
the  similar  work  of  L'Infortune,  so  the  work  of 
Gracien  du  Pont  is  little  more  than  a  reproduc- 
tion of  Fabri's.  Gracien  du  Pont  is  still  chiefly 
intent  on  rime  equivoquee,  rime  entrelac^e,  rime 
retrograde,  rime  concatenee,  and  the  various  other 
mediaeval  complexities  of  versification.  Sibilet's 
Ai't  Poetique  is  more  interesting  than  any  of  its 
predecessors.  It  was  published  a  year  before 
the  Defense  of  Du  Bellay,  and  discusses  many 
of  the  new  genres  which  the  latter  advocates. 
Sibilet  treats  of  the  sonnet,  which  had  recently 
been  borrowed  from  the  Italians  by  Mellin  de 
Saint-Gelais,  the  ode,  which  had  just  been  employed 
by  Pelletier,  and  the  epigram,  as  practised  by 
Marot.  The  eclogue  is  described  as  "  Greek  by 
invention,  Latin  by  usurpation,  and  French  by  imi- 
tation." But  one  of  the  most  interesting  passages 
in  Sibilet's  book  is  that  in  which  the  French  moral- 
ity is  compared  with  the  classical  drama.  This 
passage  exhibits  perhaps  the  earliest  trace  of  the 
influence  of  Italian  ideas  on  French  criticism;  it 
will  be  discussed  later  in  connection  with  the  dra- 
matic theories  of  this  period. 

It  is  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
then,  that  the  influence  of  Italian  criticism  is  first 
visible.       The  literature  of  Italy  was  read   with 


176  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

avidity  in  France.  Many  educated  young  French- 
men travelled  in  Italy,  and  several  Italian  men  of 
letters  visited  France.  Girolamo  Muzio  travelled 
in  France  in  1524,  and  again  in  1530  with  Giulio 
Cammillo.^  Aretino  mentions  the  fact  that  a  Vin- 
cenzo  Maggi  was  at  the  Court  of  France  in  1548, 
but  it  has  been  doubted  whether  this  was  the 
author  of  the  commentary  on  the  Poetics."^  In  1549, 
after  the  completion  of  the  two  last  parts  of  his 
Poetica,  dedicated  to  the  Bishop  of  Arras,  Trissino 
made  a  tour  about  France.^  Nor  must  Ave  forget 
the  number  of  Italian  scholars  called  to  Paris  by 
Francis  I.*  The  literary  relations  between  the 
two  countries  do  not  concern  us  here ;  but  it  is  no 
insignificant  fact  that  the  great  literary  reforms  of 
the  Pleiade  should  take  place  between  1548  and 
1550,  the  very  time  when  critical  activity  first 
received  its  great  impetus  in  Italy.  This  Italian 
influence  is  just  becoming  apparent  in  Sibilet,  for 
whom  the  poets  between  Jean  le  Maire  de  Beiges 
and  Clement  Marot  are  the  chief  models,  but  who 
is  not  wholly  averse  to  the  moderate  innovations 
derived  by  France  from  classical  antiquity  and  the 
Italian  Renaissance. 

M.  Brunetiere,  in  a  very  suggestive  chapter  of 
his  History  of  French  Criticism,  regards  the  De- 
fense of  Du  Bellay,  the  Poetics  of  Scaliger,  and  the 
Art  Po4tique  of  Vauquelin  de  la  Fresnaye  as  the 
most  important  critical  works    in   France   during 


1  Tiraboschi,  vii.  350.  *  Morsolin,  Tri.tsino,  p.  358. 

2  Ibid.  vii.  14G5.  *  Egger,  Helle'nitinw,  cb.  vii. 


I.]      DEVELOPMENT  OF   FRENCH   CRITICISM     177 

the  sixteentli  century.^  It  may  indeed  be  said  that 
Du  Bellay's  Defense  (1549)  is  not  in  any  true  sense 
a  work  of  literary  criticism  at  all ;  that  Scaliger's 
Poetics  (1561)  is  the  work,  not  of  a  French  critic, 
but  of  an  Italian  humanist ;  and  that  Vauquelin's 
Art  Poetique  (not  published  until  1605),  so  far  as 
any  influence  it  may  have  had  is  concerned,  does 
not  belong  to  the  sixteenth  century,  and  can  hardly 
be  called  important.  At  the  same  time  these  three 
works  are  interesting  documents  in  the  literary 
history  of  France,  and  represent  three  distinct 
stages  in  the  development  of  French  criticism  in 
the  sixteenth  century.  Du  Bellay's  work  marks 
the  beginning  of  the  introduction  of  classical  ideals 
into  French  literature  ;  Scaliger's  work,  while  writ- 
ten by  an  Italian  and  in  Latin,  was  composed  and 
published  in  France,  and  marks  the  introduction 
of  the  Aristotelian  canons  into  French  criticism; 
and  Vauquelin's  work  indicates  the  sum  of  critical 
ideas  which  France  had  gathered  and  accepted  in 
the  sixteenth  century. 

With  Du  Bellay's  Defense  et  Illustration  de  la 
Langue  frangaise  (1549)  modern  literature  and 
modern  criticism  in  France  may  be  said  to  begin. 
The  Defense  is  a  monument  of  the  influence  of 
Italian  upon  French  literary  and  linguistic  criti- 
cism. The  purpose  of  the  book,  as  its  title  implies, 
is  to  defend  the  French  language,  and  to  indicate 
the  means  by  which  it  can  approach  more  closely 
to  dignity  and  perfection.  The  fundamental  con- 
tention of   Du   Bellay  is,   first,   that   the   French 

1  Brunetifere,  i.  43. 
n 


178  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

language  is  capable  of  attaining  perfection;  and, 
secondly,  that  it  can  only  hope  to  do  so  by  imitat- 
ing Greek  and  Latin.  This  thesis  is  propounded 
and  proved  in  the  first  book  of  the  Defense;  and 
the  second  book  is  devoted  to  answering  the  ques- 
tion: By  what  specific  means  is  this  perfection, 
based  on  the  imitation  of  the  perfection  of  Greek 
and  Latin,  to  be  attained  by  the  French  tongue  ? 
Du  Bellay  contends  that  as  the  diversity  of  lan- 
guage among  the  different  nations  is  ascribable 
entirely  to  the  caprice  of  men,  the  perfection  of 
any  tongue  is  due  exclusively  to  the  diligence  and 
artifice  of  those  who  use  it.  It  is  the  duty,  there- 
fore, of  every  one  to  set  about  consciously  to  improve 
his  native  speech.  The  Latin  tongue  was  not  al- 
ways as  perfect  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Virgil  and 
Cicero  ;  and  if  these  writers  had  regarded  language 
as  incapable  of  being  polished  and  enriched,  or  if 
they  had  imagined  that  their  language  could  only 
be  perfected  by  the  imitation  of  their  own  national 
predecessors,  Latin  would  never  have  arrived  at  a 
higher  state  of  perfection  than  that  of  Ennius  and 
Crassus.  But  as  Virgil  and  Cicero  perfected  Latin 
by  imitating  Greek,  so  the  French  tongue  can  only 
be  made  beautiful  by  imitating  Greek,  Latin,  and 
Italian,  all  of  which  have  attained  a  certain  share 
of  perfection.^ 

At  the  same  time,  two  things  must  be  guarded 

against.    The  French  tongue  cannot  be  improved  by 

merely  translating  the  classic  and  Italian  tongues. 

Translation  has  its  value  in  popularizing  ideas ;  but 

1  Cf.  Horace,  Ars  Poet.  63  sq. 


I.]      DEVELOPMENT   OF   FRENCH   CRITICISM     179 

by  mere  translation  no  language  or  literature  can 
hope  to  attain  perfection.  Kor  is  a  mere  bald  imita- 
tion sufficient ;  but,  in  Du  Bellay's  oft-cited  phrase, 
the  beauties  of  these  foreign  tongues  "  must  be  con- 
verted into  blood  and  nourishment. "  ^  The  classics 
have  "blood,  nerves,  and  bones,"  while  the  older 
French  writers  have  merely  "  skin  and  color."  ^ 
The  modern  French  writer  should  therefore  dis- 
miss with  contempt  the  older  poets  of  France,  and 
set  about  to  imitate  the  Greeks,  Latins,  and  Italians. 
He  should  leave  off  composing  rondeaux,  ballades, 
virelays,  and  such  epiceries,  which  corrupt  the  taste 
of  the  French  language,  and  serve  only  to  show  its 
ignorance  and  poverty  ;  and  in  their  stead  he  shoiild 
employ  the  epigram,  which  mingles,  in  Horace's 
words,  the  profitable  with  the  pleasant,  the  tearful 
elegy,  in  imitation  of  Ovid  and  Tibullus,  the  ode, 
one  of  the  sublimest  forms  of  poetry,  the  eclogue,  in 
imitation  of  Theocritus,  Virgil,  and  Sannazaro, 
and  the  beautiful  sonnet,  an  Italian  invention  no 
less  learned  than  pleasing.^  Instead  of  the  morality 
and  the  farce,  the  poet  should  write  tragedies  and 
comedies ;  he  should  attempt  another  Iliad  or 
^neid  for  the  glory  and  honor  of  France.  This 
is  the  gist  of  Du  Bellay's  argument  in  so  far  as  it 
deals  in  general  terms  with  the  French  language 
and  literature.  The  six  or  seven  concluding  chap- 
ters treat  of  more  minute  and  detailed  questions  of 
language  and  versification.  Du  Bellay  advises  the 
adoption  of  classical  words  as  a  means  of  enriching 
the  French  tongue,  and  speaks  with  favor  of  the 
1  Defense,  i.  7.  2  jbia.  ii.  2.  «  Ibid.  ii.  4. 


180         LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

use  of  rhymeless  verse  in  imitation  of  the  classics. 
The  Defense  ends  with  an  appeal  to  the  reader  not 
to  fear  to  go  and  despoil  Greece  and  Rome  of  their 
treasures  for  the  benefit  of  French  poetry.^ 

From  this  analysis  it  will  be  seen  that  the  De- 
fense is  really  a  philological  polemic,  belonging  to 
the  same  class  as  the  long  series  of  Italian  discus- 
sions on  the  vulgar  tongue  which  begins  with 
Dante,  and  which  includes  the  works  of  Bembo, 
Castiglione,  Varchi,  and  others.  It  is,  as  a  French 
critic  has  said,  a  combined  pamphlet,  defence,  and 
ars  poetica ;  ^  but  it  is  only  an  ars  poetica  in  so  far 
as  it  advises  the  French  poet  to  employ  certain 
poetic  forms,  and  treats  of  rhythm  and  rhyme  in  a 
concluding  chapter  or  two.  But  curiously  enough, 
the  source  and  inspiration  of  Du  Bellay's  work  have 
never  been  pointed  out.  The  actual  model  of  the 
Defense  was  without  doubt  Dante's  De  Vulgari 
Eloquio,  which,  in  the  Italian  version  of  Trissino, 
had  been  given  to  the  world  for  the  first  time  in 
1529,  exactly  twenty  years  before  the  Defense. 
The  two  works,  allowing  for  the  difference  in  time 
and  circumstance,  resemble  each  other  closely  in 
spirit  and  purpose  as  well  as  in  contents  and  de- 
sign. Du  Bellay's  work,  like  Dante's,  is  divided 
into  two  books,  each  of  which  is  again  divided  into 
about  the  same  number  of  chapters.  The  first  book 
of  both  works  deals  with  language  in  general,  and 
the  relations  of  the  vulgar  tongue  to  the  ancient 
and  modern  languages;  the  second  book  of  both 
works  deals  with  the  particular  practices  of  the 
1  Cf.  Vida,  in  Pope,  i.  1G7.  ^  Lanson,  op.  cit.,  p.  274. 


1.]     DEVELOPMENT  OF  FRENCH  CRITICISM     181 

vulgar  tongue  concerning  which  each  author  is 
arguing.  Both  works  begin  with  a  somewhat 
similar  theory  of  the  origin  of  language ;  both 
works  close  with  a  discussion  of  the  versification  of 
the  vernacular.  The  purpose  of  both  books  is  the 
justification  of  the  vulgar  tongue,  and  the  consid- 
eration of  the  means  by  which  it  can  attain  per- 
fection ;  the  title  of  De  Vulgari  Eloquio  might  be 
applied  with  equal  force  to  either  treatise.  The 
Defense,  by  this  justification  of  the  French  language 
on  rational  if  not  entirely  cogent  and  consistent 
grounds,  prepared  the  way  for  critical  activity  in 
France;  and  it  is  no  insignificant  fact  that  the  first 
critical  work  of  modern  France  should  have  been 
based  on  the  first  critical  work  of  modern  Italy. 
Thirty  years  later,  Henri  Estienne,  in  his  Precel- 
lence  du  Langage  fraiigois,  could  assert  that  French 
is  the  best  language  of  ancient  or  modern  times, 
just  as  Salviati  in  1564  had  claimed  that  preemi- 
nent position  for  Italian.^ 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  so  radical  a  break 
with  the  national  traditions  of  France  as  was  im- 
plied by  Du  Bellay's  innovations  would  be  left 
unheeded  by  the  enemies  of  the  Pleiade.  The  an- 
swer came  soon,  in  an  anonymous  pamphlet,  enti- 
tled Le  Quintil  Horatian  sur  la  Defense  et  Illustration 
de  la  Langue  frangoise.  Until  a  very  few  years  ago, 
this  treatise  was  ascribed  to  a  disciple  of  Marot, 
Charles  Fontaine.  But  in  1883  an  autograph  letter 
of  Fontaine's  was  discovered,  in  which  he  strenu- 
ously denies  the  authorship  of  the  Quintil  Horatian  ; 
1  Cf.  T.  Tasso,  xxiii.  97. 


182  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

and  more  recent  researches  have  shown  pretty  con- 
clusively that  the  real  author  was  a  friend  of  Fon- 
taine's, Barthelemy  Aneau,  head  of  the  College  of 
Lyons.^  The  Quintil  Horatian  was  first  published 
in  1550,  the  year  after  the  appearance  of  the  Di- 
fense?  The  author  informs  us  that  he  had  trans- 
lated the  whole  of  Horace's  Ars  Poetica  into 
French  verse  "  over  twenty  years  ago,  before  Pelle- 
tier  or  any  one  else,"  that  is,  between  1525  and 
1630.'  This  translation  was  never  published,  but 
fragments  of  it  are  cited  in  the  Quintil  Horatian. 
The  pamphlet  itself  takes  up  the  arguments  of  Du 
Bellay  step  by  step,  and  refutes  them.  The  author 
finds  fault  with  the  constructions,  the  metaphors, 
and  the  neologisms  of  Du  Bellay.  Aneau's  tem- 
perament was  dogmatic  and  pedagogic ;  his  judg- 
ment was  not  always  good ;  and  modern  French 
critics  cannot  forgive  him  for  attacking  Du  Bellay's 
use  of  such  a  word  as  patrie. 

But  it  is  not  entirely  just  to  speak  of  the  Quintil 
Horatian,  in  the  words  of  a  modern  literary  histo- 
rian, as  full  of  futile  and  valueless  criticisms.  The 
author's  minute  linguistic  objections  are  often  hy- 
percritical, but  his  work  represents  a  natural  reaction 
against  the  Pleiade.  His  chief  censure  of  the  De- 
fense was  directed  against  the  introduction  of  clas- 
sical and  Italian  words  into  the  French  language. 
"Est-ce  la  defense  et  illustration,"  he  exclaims,  "  ou 

1  H.  Chamard,  "  Le  Date  et  I'Auteur  du  Quintil  Horatian," 
in  the  Revue  d'Histoire  litt6raire  de  la  France,  1898,  v.  59  sq. 

2  Ihid.  V.  54  sq. 

8  Ibid.  V.  G2 ;  63,  n.  1. 


I.]      DEVELOPMENT   OF   FRENCH   CRITICISM     183 

plus  tost  offense  et  denigration  ? "  He  charges 
the  Pleiade  with  having  contemned  the  classics  of 
French  poetry ;  the  new  school  advocated  the  dis- 
use of  the  complicated  metrical  forms  merely  be- 
cause they  were  too  difficult.  The  sonnet,  the  ode, 
and  the  elegy  he  dismisses  as  useless  innovations. 
The  object  of  poetry,  according  to  Horace,  is  to 
gladden  and  please,  while  the  elegy  merely  saddens 
and  brings  tears  to  the  eyes.  "  Poetry,"  he  says, 
"is  like  painting;  and  as  painting  is  intended  to 
fill  us  with  delight,  and  not  to  sadden  us,  so  the 
mournful  elegy  is  one  of  the  meanest  forms  of 
poetry."  Aneau  is  unable  to  appreciate  the  high 
and  sublime  conception  of  the  poet's  office  which 
the  Pleiade  first  introduced  into  French  literature ; 
for  him  the  poet  is  a  mere  versifier  who  amuses  his 
audience.  He  represents  the  general  reaction  of 
the  national  spirit  against  the  classical  innovations 
of  the  Pleiade ;  and  the  Quiyitil  Horatian  may  there- 
fore be  called  the  last  representative  work  of  the 
older  school  of  poetry. 

It  was  at  about  this  period  that  Aristotle's  Poetics 
first  influenced  French  criticism.  In  one  of  the 
concluding  chapters  of  the  Defense  Du  Bellay 
remarks  that  "  the  virtues  and  vices  of  a  poem  have 
been  diligently  treated  by  the  ancients,  such  as 
Aristotle  and  Horace,  and  after  them  by  Hierony- 
mus  Vida."^  Horace  is  mentioned  and  cited  in 
numerous  other  places,  and  the  influence  of  the 
general  rhetorical  portions  of  the  Ars  Poetica  is 
very  marked  throughout  the  Defense  ;  there  are 
1  Difense,  ii.  9. 


184  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

also  many  traces  of  the  influence  of  Yida.  But 
there  is  no  evidence  whatsoever  of  any  knowledge 
of  Aristotle's  Poetics.  Of  its  name  and  importance 
Du  Bellay  had  probably  read  in  the  writings  of  the 
Italians,  but  of  its  contents  he  knew  little  or  noth- 
ing. There  is  indeed  no  well-established  allusion 
to  the  Poetics  in  France  before  this  time.  None  of 
the  French  humanists  seems  to  have  known  it.  Its 
title  is  cited  by  Erasmus  in  a  letter  dated  February 
27,  1531,  and  it  was  published  by  him  without  any 
commentary  at  Basle  in  the  same  year,  though 
Simon  Grynaeus  appears  to  have  been  the  real  edi- 
tor of  this  work.  An  edition  of  the  Poetics  was 
also  published  at  Paris  in  1541,  but  does  not  seem 
to  have  had  any  appreciable  influence  on  the  critical 
activity  of  France.  Several  years  after  the  publi- 
cation of  the  Defense,  in  the  satirical  poem,  Le  Po'ete 
Coio'tisan,  written  shortly  after  his  return  from 
Italy  in  1555,  Du  Bellay  shows  a  somewhat  more 
definite  knowledge  of  the  contents  of  the  Poetics :  — 

"  Je  ne  veux  point  ici  du  maistre  d'Alexandre  [i.e.  Aristotle], 
Touchant  Part  pontic,  les  preceptes  t'apprendre 
Tu  n'apprendras  de  moy  comment  jouer  il  faut 
Les  miseres  des  rois  dessus  un  eschaffaut : 
Je  ne  t'enseigne  I'art  de  I'humble  comoedie 
Ni  du  M6onien  la  muse  plus  hardie  : 
Bref  je  ne  monstre  ici  d'un  vers  horacien 
Les  vices  et  vertus  du  poeme  ancien  : 
Je  ne  depeins  aussi  le  poete  du  Vide."  ^ 

In  1555  Guillaume  Morel,  the  disciple  of  Turne- 
bus,  published  an  edition  of  Aristotle's  Poetics  at 
1  Du  Bellay,  p.  120. 


i.J     DEVELOPMENT  OF   FRENCH   CRITICISM     185 

Paris.  It  is  interesting  to  note,  however,  that  the 
reference  in  the  Defense  is  the  first  allusion  to  the 
Poetics  to  be  found  in  the  critical  literature  of 
France ;  by  1549  the  Italian  Eenaissance,  and  Ital- 
ian criticism,  had  come  into  France  for  good.  In 
1560,  the  year  before  the  publication  of  Scaliger's 
Poetics,  Aristotle's  treatise  had  acquired  such  prom- 
inence that  in  a  volume  of  selections  from  Aristotle's 
works,  published  at  Paris  in  that  year,  Aristotelis 
Sententice,  the  selections  from  the  Poetics  are  placed 
at  the  head  of  the  volume.^  In  1572  Jean  de  la 
Taille  refers  his  readers  to  what  "  the  great  Aristotle 
in  his  Poetics,  and  after  him  Horace  though  not  with 
the  same  subtlety,  have  said  more  amply  and  better 
than  I."  2 

The  influence  of  Scaliger's  Poetics  on  the  French 
dramatic  criticism  of  this  period  has  generally  been 
overestimated.  Scaliger's  influence  in  France  was 
not  inconsiderable  during  the  sixteenth  century, 
but  it  was  not  until  the  very  end  of  the  century 
that  he  held  the  dictatorial  position  afterward  ac- 
corded to  him.  No  edition  of  his  Poetics  was  ever 
published  at  Paris.  The  first  edition  appeared  at 
Lyons,  and  subsequent  editions  appeared  at  Heidel- 
berg and  Leyden.  It  was  in  Germany,  in  Spain, 
and  in  England  that  his  influence  was  first  felt; 
and  it  was  largely  through  the  Dutch  scholars, 
Heinsius  and  Vossius,  that  his  influence  was  car- 
ried into  France  in  the  next  century.  It  is  a  mis- 
take to  say  that  he  had  any  primary  influence  on 

1  Parisiis,  apud  Hieronymum  de  Marnaf,  1560. 

2  Robert,  appendix  iii. 


186         LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

the  formulation  and  acceptance  of  the  unities  of 
time  and  place  in  French  literature ;  there  is  in  his 
Poetics,  as  has  been  seen,  no  such  definite  and  formal 
statement  of  the  unities  as  may  be  found  in  Castel- 
vetro,  in  Jean  de  la  Taille,  in  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  or 
in  Chapelain.  At  the  same  time,  while  Scaliger's 
Poetics  did  not  assume  during  the  sixteenth  century 
the  dictatorial  supremacy  it  attained  diiring  the 
seventeenth,  and  while  the  particular  views  enunci- 
ated in  its  pages  had  no  direct  influence  on  the  cur- 
rent of  sixteenth-century  ideas,  it  certainly  had  an 
indirect  influence  on  the  general  tendency  of  the 
critical  activity  of  the  French  Renaissance.  This 
indirect  influence  manifests  itself  in  the  gradual 
Latinization  of  culture  during  the  second  half  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  and,  as  will  be  seen  later,  in 
the  emphasis  on  the  Aristotelian  canons  in  French 
dramatic  criticism.  Scaliger  was  a  personal 
friend  of  several  members  of  the  Pleiade,  and 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  wielded 
considerable,  even  if  merely  indirect,  influence 
on  the  development  of  that  great  literary  move- 
ment. 

The  last  expression  of  the  poetic  theories  of  the 
Pleiade  is  to  be  found  in  the  didactic  poem  of 
Vauquelin  de  la  Fresnaye,  L'Art  Poitique  frangois, 
ou  Von  peut  remarquer  la  perfection  et  le  difmit 
des  anciennes  et  des  modernes  poesies.  This  poem, 
though  not  published  until  1605,  was  begun  in 
1574  at  the  command  of  Henry  III.,  and,  aug- 
mented by  successive  additions,  was  not  yet  com- 
plete by  1590.     Vauquelin  makes   the   following 


I.]      DEVELOPMENT   OF   FRENCH   CRITICISM      187 

explicit  acknowledgment  of  his  indebtedness  to  the 
critical  writers  that  preceded  him :  — 

"  Pour  ce  ensuivant  les  pas  du  fils  de  Nicomache   [i.e. 

Aristotle], 
Du  harpeur  de  Calabre  [i.e.  Horace],  et  tout  ce  que 

remache 
Vide  et  Minturne  apr^s,  j'ay  cet  oeuvre  aprest^."  ^ 

Aristotle,  Horace,  Vida,  and  Mintiirno  are  thus 
his  acknowledged  models  and  sources.  Nearly  the 
whole  of  Horace's  Ars  Poetica  he  has  translated 
and  embodied  in  his  poem;  and  he  has  borrowed 
from  Vida  a  considerable  number  of  images  and 
metaphors.-  His  indebtedness  to  Aristotle  and  to 
Minturno  brings  up  several  intricate  questions.  It 
has  been  said  that  Vauquelin  simply  mentioned 
Minturno  in  order  to  put  himself  under  the  pro- 
tection of  a  respectable  Italian  authority.^  On  the 
contrary,  exclusive  of  Horace,  Ronsard,  and  Du 
Bellay,  the  whole  of  whose  critical  discussions  he  has 
almost  incorporated  into  his  poem,  Minturno  is  his 
chief  authority,  his  model,  and  his  guide.  In  fact, 
it  was  probably  from  Minturno  that  he  derived  his 
entire  knowledge  of  the  Aristotelian  canons;  it  is 
not  Aristotle,  but  Minturno's  conception  of  Aristotle, 
that  Vauquelin  has  adhered  to.  Many  points  in 
his  poem  are  explained  by  this  fact;  here  only 
one  can  be  mentioned.  Vauquelin's  account,  in  the 
second  canto  of  his  AH  Poetique,  of  the  origin  of 

1  Art  Poet.  i.  63. 

2  Pellissier,  pp.  57-63. 

3  Lemercier,  Etude  sur  Vaitqtielin,  1887,  p.  117,  and  Pellis- 
Bier,  p.  57. 


188      .   LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

the  drama  from  the  songs  at  the  altar  of  Bacchus 
at  the  time  of  the  vintage,  is  undoubtedly  derived 
from  Minturno.^  It  may  have  been  observed  that 
during  the  Renaissance  there  were  two  distinct 
conceptions  of  the  origin  of  poetry.  One,  which 
might  be  called  ethical,  was  derived  from  Horace, 
according  to  whom  the  poet  was  originally  a  law- 
giver, or  divine  prophet;  and  this  conception  per- 
sists in  modern  literature  from  Poliziano  to  Shelley. 
The  other,  or  scientific  conception,  was  especially 
applied  to  the  drama,  and  was  based  on  Aristotle's 
remarks  on  the  origin  of  tragedy ;  this  attempt  to 
discover  some  scientific  explanation  for  poetic  phe- 
nomena may  be  found  in  the  more  rationalistic  of 
Renaissance  critics,  such  as  Scaliger  and  Viperano. 
Vauquelin  de  la  Fresnaye,  the  disciple  of  Ronsard 
and  the  last  exponent  of  the  critical  doctrines  of 
the  Pleiade,  thus  represents  the  incorporation  of 
the  body  of  Italian  ideas  into  French  criticism. 
With  Vauquelin  de  la  Fresnaye  and  De  Laudun 
Daigaliers  (1598)  the  history  of  French  criticism 
during  the  sixteenth  century  is  at  an  end.  The 
critical  activity  of  this  period,  as  has  already  been 
remarked,  is  of  a  far  more  practical  character  than 
that  of  Italy.  Literary  criticism  in  France  was 
created  by  the  exigencies  of  a  great  literary  move- 
ment; and  throughout  the  century  it  never  lost  its 
connection  with  this  movement,  or  failed  to  serve 
it  in  some  practical  way.  The  poetic  criticism  was 
carried  on  by  poets,  whose  desire  it  was  to  further 

iMinturno,   Arte   Poetica,   p.  73;    De   Poeta,   p.   252.     Of. 
Vauqueliu,  Fellissior's  iutroductiou,  p.  xliv. 


I.]      DEVELOPMENT  OF   FRENCH   CRITICISM      189 

a  cause,  to  defend  their  own  works,  or  to  justify 
their  own  views.  The  dramatic  criticism  was  for 
the  most  part  carried  on  by  dramatists,  sometimes 
even  in  the  prefaces  of  their  plays.  In  the  six- 
teenth century,  as  ever  since,  the  interrelation  of 
the  creative  and  the  critical  faculties  in  France 
was  marked  and  definite.  But  there  was,  one 
might  almost  say,  little  critical  theorizing  in  the 
French  Eenaissance.  Excepting,  of  course,  Scaliger, 
there  was  even  nothing  of  the  deification  of 
Aristotle  found  in  Italian  criticism.  To  take 
notice  of  a  minute  but  significant  detail,  there 
was  no  attempt  to  explain  Aristotle's  doctrine  of 
katharsis,  the  source  of  infinite  controversy  in  Italy. 
There  was  no  detailed  and  consistent  discussion  of 
the  theory  of  the  epic  poem.  All  these  things  may 
be  found  in  seventeenth-century  France;  but  their 
home  was  sixteenth-century  Italy. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    THEORY    OF    POETRY    IN    THE    FRENCH 

RENAISSANCE 

It  is  in  keeping  -witli  the  practical  character  of 
the  literary  criticism  of  this  period  that  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Pleiade  did  not  concern  themselves  with 
the  general  theory  of  poetry.  Until  the  very  end 
of  the  century  there  is  not  to  be  found  any  system- 
atic poetic  theory  in  France.  It  is  in  dramatic 
criticism  that  this  period  has  most  to  offer,  and 
the  dramatic  criticism  is  peculiarly  interesting  be- 
cause it  foreshadows  in  many  ways  the  doctrines 
upon  which  were  based  the  dramas  of  Eacine  and 
Corneille. 

I.    The  Poetic  Art 

In  Du  Bellay's  Defense  there  is  no  attempt  to 
formulate  a  consistent  body  of  critical  doctrine; 
but  the  book  exhibits,  in  a  more  or  less  crude  form, 
all  the  tendencies  for  which  the  Pleiade  stands  in 
French  literature.  The  fundamental  idea  of  the 
Defense  is  that  French  poetry  can  only  hope  to 
reach  perfection  by  imitating  the  classics.  The 
imitation  of  the  classics  implies,  in  the  first  place, 
erudition  on  the  part  of  the  poet;  and,  moreover, 
190 


CHAP.  II.]         THE   THEORY   OF  POETRY  191 

it  requires  intellectual  labor  and  study.  The  poet 
is  born,  it  is  true ;  but  this  only  refers  to  the  ardor 
and  joy  fulness  of  spirit  which  naturally  excite  him, 
but  which,  without  learning  and  erudition,  are  ab- 
solutely useless.  "He  who  wishes  poetic  immor- 
tality," says  Du  Bellay,  '-must  spend  his  time  in 
the  solitude  of  his  own  chamber;  instead  of  eat- 
ing, drinking,  and  sleeping,  he  must  endure  hun- 
ger, thirst,  and  long  vigils."  ^  Elsewhere  he  speaks 
of  silence  and  solitude  as  amy  des  Muses.  From  all 
this  there  arises  a  natural  contempt  for  the  igno- 
rant people,  who  know  nothing  of  ancient  learning : 
"  Especially  do  I  wish  to  admonish  him  who  aspires 
to  a  more  than  vulgar  glory,  to  separate  himself 
from  such  inept  admirers,  to  flee  from  the  ignorant 
people, — the  people  who  are  the  enemies  of  all 
rare  and  antique  learning,  —  and  to  content  himself 
with  few  readers,  following  the  example  of  him  who 
did  not  demand  for  an  audience  any  one  beside  Plato 
himself."  - 

In  the  Art  Poetique  of  Jacques  Pelletier  du  Mans, 
published  at  Lyons  in  1555,  the  point  of  view  is 
that  of  the  Pleiade,  but  more  mellow  and  moderate 
than  that  of  its  most  advanced  and  radical  mem- 
bers. The  treatise  begins  with  an  account  of  the 
antiquity  and  excellence  of  poetry ;  and  poets  are 
spoken  of  as  originally  the  maitres  et  r^formateurs 
de  la  vie.  Poetry  is  then  compared  with  oratory 
and  with  painting,  after  the  usual  Renaissance 
fashion ;  and  Pelletier  agrees  with  Horace  in  re- 
garding the  combined  power  of  art  and  nature  as 
1  Defense,  ii.  3.  2  jbia.  ii.  n. 


192         LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

necessary  to  the  fashioning  of  a  poet.  His  concep- 
tion of  the  latter's  ofiB.ce  is  not  unlike  that  of  Tasso 
and  Shelley,  "  It  is  the  office  of  the  poet  to  give 
novelty  to  old  things,  authority  to  the  new,  beauty 
to  the  rude,  light  to  the  obscure,  faith  to  the  doubt- 
ful, and  to  all  things  their  true  nature,  and  to  their 
true  nature  all  things."  Concerning  the  questions 
of  language,  versification,  and  the  feeling  for  natural 
scenery,  he  agrees  fundamentally  with  the  chief 
writers  of  the  Pleiade. 

The  greatest  of  these,  Ronsard,  has  given  ex- 
pression to  his  views  on  the  poetic  art  in  his  Ab- 
regi  de  VArt  Poetique  frangois  (1565),  and  later 
in  the  two  prefaces  of  his  epic  of  the  Franciade. 
The  chief  interest  of  the  Abrege  in  the  present  dis- 
cussion is  that  it  expounds  and  emphasizes  the  high 
notion  of  the  poet's  ofifice  introduced  into  French 
poetry  by  the  Pleiade.  Before  the  advent  of  the 
new  school,  mere  skill  in  the  complicated  forms  of 
verse  was  regarded  as  the  test  of  poetry.  The 
poet  was  simply  a  rimeur ;  and  the  term  ^'poUe," 
with  all  that  it  implies,  first  came  into  use  with 
the  Pleiade.  The  distinction  between  the  versifier 
and  the  poet,  as  pointed  out  by  Aristotle  and  in- 
sisted upon  by  the  Italians,  became  with  the  Ple- 
iade almost  vital.  Binet,  the  disciple  and  biographer 
of  Honsard,  says  of  his  master  that  ''  he  was  the 
mortal  enemy  of  versifiers,  whose  conceptions  are 
all  debased,  and  who  think  they  have  wrought  a 
masterpiece  when  they  have  transposed  something 
from  prose  into  verse."  ^  Ronsard's  own  account 
iRonsard,  vii.  310,  325. 


II.]        THE  THEORY  OF  POETRY       193 

of  the  dignity  and  high  function  of  poetry  must 
needs  be  cited  at  length :  — 

"Above  all  things  you  wiU  hold  the  Muses  in  reverence, 
yea,  in  singular  veneration,  and  you  wiU  never  let  them 
serve  in  matters  that  are  dishonest,  or  mere  jests,  or  inju- 
dicious libels ;  but  you  vrill  hold  them  dear  and  sacred,  as 
the  daughters  of  Jupiter,  that  is,  God,  who  by  His  holy 
grace  has  through  them  first  made  known  to  ignorant  people 
the  excellencies  of  His  majesty.  For  poetry  in  early  times 
was  only  an  allegorical  theology,  in  order  to  make  stupid 
men,  by  pleasant  and  wondrously  colored  fables,  know 
the  secrets  they  could  not  comprehend,  were  the  truth 
too  openly  made  known  to  them.  .  .  .  Now,  since  the 
Muses  do  not  care  to  lodge  in  a  soul  unless  it  is  good, 
holy,  and  virtuous,  you  should  try  to  be  of  a  good  dis- 
position, not  wicked,  scowling,  and  cross,  but  animated 
by  a  gentle  spirit ;  and  you  should  not  let  anything  enter 
your  mind  that  is  not  superhuman  and  divine.  You  should 
have,  in  the  first  place,  conceptions  that  are  high,  grand, 
beautiful,  and  not  trailing  upon  the  ground  ;  for  the  princi- 
pal part  of  poetry  consists  of  invention,  which  comes  as 
much  from  a  beautiful  nature  as  from  the  reading  of  good 
and  ancient  authors.  If  you  undertake  any  great  work, 
you  will  show  yourself  devout  and  fearing  God,  commenc- 
ing it  either  with  His  name  or  by  any  other  which  repre- 
sents some  effects  of  His  majesty,  after  the  manner  of  the 
Greek  poets  ...  for  the  Muses,  Apollo,  Mercury,  Pallas, 
and  other  similar  deities,  merely  represent  the  powers  of 
God,  to  which  the  first  men  gave  several  names  for  the 
diverse  effects  of  His  incomprehensible  majesty."  i 

In  this  eloquent  passage  the  conception  of  the 
poet  as  an  essentially  moral  being,  —  a  doctrine 
first  enunciated  by  Strabo,  and  repeated  by  Min- 
turno    and    others,  —  and    Boccaccio's    notion   of 

1  Eonsard,  vii.  37  sq. 
o 


194  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

poetry  as  originally  an  allegorical  theology,  are 
both  introduced  into  French  criticism.  Elsewhere 
Ronsard  repeats  the  mediaeval  concept  that  poets 

"  d'un  voile  divers 
Par  fables  ont  cach^  le  vray  sens  de  leurs  vers."  i 

It  will  be  seen  also  that  for  Ronsard,  poetry  is  es- 
sentially a  matter  of  inspiration ;  and  in  the  poem 
just  quoted,  the  Discours  a  Jacques  Grevin,  he  fol- 
lows the  Platonic  conception  of  divine  inspiration 
or  madness.  A  few  years  later  Montaigne  said  of 
poetry  that  "  it  is  an  easier  matter  to  frame  it  than 
to  know  it;  being  base  and  humble,  it  may  be 
judged  by  the  precepts  and  art  of  it,  but  the  good 
and  lofty,  the  supreme  and  divine,  are  beyond  rules 
and  above  reason.  It  hath  no  community  with  our 
judgment,  but  ransacketh  and  ravisheth  the  same."' 
In  his  various  critical  works  Ronsard  shows 
considerable  indebtedness  to  the  Italian  theorists, 
especially  to  Minturno.  He  does  not  attempt  any 
formal  definition  of  poetry,  but  its  function  is  de- 
scribed as  follows :  "  As'  the  end  of  the  orator  is 
to  persuade,  so  that  of  the  poet  is  to  imitate,  invent, 
and  represent  the  things  that  are,  that  can  be,  or 
that  the  ancients  regarded  as  true." '  The  conclud- 
ing clause  of  this  passage  is  intended  to  justify 
the  modern  use  of  the  ancient  mythology ;  but  the 
whole  passage  seems  primarily  to  follow  Scaliger  ■• 

'  1  Ronsard,  vi.  311  sq. 
2  Essais,  i.  3(5,  Florio's  translation. 

8  Ronsard,  vii.  322.     Cf.  Aristotle,  Poet.  ix.  1-4;  xxv.  6,  7. 
*  Poet.  iii.  24. 


II.]        THE  THEORY  OF  POETRY       195 

and  Minturno.^  It  is  to  be  observed  that  verse  is 
not  mentioned  in  this  definition  as  an  essential 
requirement  of  poetry.  It  was  indeed  a  favorite 
contention  of  his,  and  one  for  which  he  was  in- 
debted to  the  Italians,  that  all  who  write  in  verse 
are  not  poets.  Lucan  and  Silius  Italicus  have  robed 
history  with  the  raiment  of  verse;  but  according 
to  Ronsard  they  would  have  done  better  in  many 
ways  to  have  written  in  prose.  The  poet,  unlike 
the  historian,  deals  with  the  verisimilar  and  the 
probable;  and  while  he  cannot  be  responsible  for 
falsehoods  which  are  in  opposition  to  the  truth  of 
things,  any  more  than  the  historian  can,  he  is  not 
interested  to  know  whether  or  not  the  details  of 
his  poems  are  actual  historical  facts.  Verisimili- 
tude, and  not  fact,  is  therefore  the  test  of  poetry. 

In  Vauquelin  de  la  Fresnaye  may  be  found  most 
of  the  Aristotelian  distinctions  in  regard  to  imita- 
tion, harmony,  rhythm,  and  poetic  theory  in  general ; 
but  these  distinctions  he  derived,  as  has  already 
been  said,  not  directly  from  Aristotle,  but  in  all  prob- 
ability from  Minturno.  Poetry  is  defined  as  an  art 
of  imitation :  — 

"  C'est  un  art  d'imiter,  un  art  de  contrefaire 
Que  toute  poesie,  ainsi  que  de  pourtraire."  * 

Verse  is  described  as  a  heaven-sent  instrument, 
the  language  of  the  gods ;  and  its  value  in  poetry 
consists  in  clarifying  and  making  the  design  com- 
pact.^   But  it  is  not  an  essential  of  poetry ;  Aris- 

1  De  Poeta,  pp.  44,  47.  2  Art  Po^t.  i.  187. 

8  Ibid.  i.  87  sq. 


196  LITERAEY   CRITICISM  IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

totle  permits  us  to  poetize  in  prose ;  and  the 
romances  of  Heliodorus  and  Montemayor  are  ex- 
amples of  this  poetic  prose. ^  The  object  of  poetry 
is  that  it  shall  cause  delight,  and  unless  it  succeeds 
in  this  it  is  entirely  futile :  — 

"  C'est  le  but,  c'est  la  fin  des  vers  que  resjouir  : 
Les  Muses  autrement  ne  les  veulent  ouir." 

As  it  is  the  function  of  the  orator  to  persuade  and 
the  physician  to  cure,  and  as  they  fail  in  their 
of&ces  unless  they  effect  these  ends,  so  the  poet  fails 
unless  he  succeeds  in  pleasing.^  This  comparison 
is  a  favorite  one  with  the  Italian  critics.  A  similar 
passage  has  already  been  cited  from  Daniello ;  and 
the  same  notion  is  thus  expressed  by  Lodovico 
Dolce :  "  The  aim  of  the  physician  is  to  cure  dis- 
eases by  means  of  medicine ;  the  orator's  to  per- 
suade by  force  of  his  arguments;  and  if  neither 
attains  this  end,  he  is  not  called  physician  or  orator. 
So  if  the  poet  does  not  delight,  he  is  not  a  poet,  for 
poetry  delights  all,  even  the  ignorant."  ^ 

But  delight,  according  to  Vauqueliu,  is  merely 
the  means  of  directing  us  to  higher  things  ;  poetry 
is  a  delightful  means  of  leading  us  to  virtue  :  — 

"C'est  pourquoy  des  beaus  vers  la  joyeuse  alegresse 
Nous  conduit  aux  vertus  d'une  plaisante  addresse."  * 

Vauquelin,  like  Scaliger,  Tasso,  Sidney,  compares 
the  poet  with  God,  the  great  Workman,  who  made 

1  Art  Po6t.  ii.  2G1.  »  Osservutioni,  Viuegia,  15(;0,  p.  190. 

2  Ibid.  i.  G97  sq.  *  Art  Poit.  i.  744. 


II.]        THE  THEORY  OF  POETRY       197 

everything  out  of  nothing.^  The  poet  is  a  divinely- 
inspired  person,  who,  sans  art,  sans  sgavoir,  creates 
works  of  divine  beauty.  Vauquelin's  contemporary, 
Du  Bartas,  has  in  his  Uranie  expressed  this  idea  in 
the  following  manner :  — 

"  Each  art  is  learned  by  art ;  but  Poesie 
Is  a  mere  heavenly  gift,  and  none  can  taste 
The  dews  we  drop  from  Pindus  plenteously, 
If  sacred  fire  have  not  his  heart  embraced, 

"  Hence  is 't  that  many  great  Philosophers, 
Deep-learned  clerks,  in  prose  most  eloquent, 
Labor  in  vain  to  make  a  graceful  verse, 
Which  many  a  novice  frames  most  excellent."  * 

While  this  is  the  accepted  Renaissance  doctrine  of 
inspiration,  Vauquelin,  in  common  with  all  other 
followers  of  the  Pleiade,  was  fully  alive  to  the  ne- 
cessity of  artifice  and  study  in  poetry ;  and  he  agrees 
with  Horace  in  regarding  both  art  and  nature  as 
equally  necessary  to  the  making  of  a  good  poet.  It 
is  usage  that  makes  art,  but  art  perfects  and  regu- 
lates usage :  — 

"  Et  ce  bel  Art  nous  sert  d'escalier  pour  monter 
ADieu."8 

II.    Tlie  Drama 

Dramatic  criticism  in  France  begins  as  a  reaction 
against  the  drama  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
mediaeval  drama  was  formless  and  inorganic,  with- 

1  Art  Po^t.  i.  19.  Of.  Tasso,  cited  by  Shelley,  Defencs,  p.  42, 
"  No  one  merits  the  name  of  creator  except  God  and  the  poet." 

2  Sylvester's  Du  Bartas,  1641,  p.  242. 

3  Art  Po6t.  i.  149. 


198  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

out  art  or  dignity.  The  classical  drama,  on  tlie 
other  hand,  possessed  both  form  and  dignity;  and 
the  new  school,  perceiving  this  contrast,  looked  to 
the  Aristotelian  canons,  as  restated  by  the  Italians, 
to  furnish  the  dignity  and  art  which  the  tragedy  of 
Greece  and  Rome  possessed,  and  which  their  own 
moralities  and  farces  fundamentally  lacked.  In  the 
first  reference  to  dramatic  literature  in  French  criti- 
cism, the  mediaeval  and  classical  dramas  are  com- 
pared after  this  fashion;  but  as  Sibilet  (1548),  in 
whose  work  this  passage  appears,  wrote  a  year  or  so 
before  the  advent  of  the  Pleiade,  the  comparison  is 
not  so  unfavorable  to  the  morality  and  the  farce  as 
it  became  in  later  critics.  ''  The  French  morality," 
says  Sibilet,  "  represents,  in  certain  distinct  traits, 
Greek  and  Latin  tragedy,  especially  in  that  it 
treats  of  grave  and  momentous  deeds  (faits  graves 
et  principaus) ;  and  if  the  French  had  always  made 
the  ending  of  the  morality  sad  and  dolorous,  the 
morality  would  be  a  tragedy.  But  in  this,  as  in  all 
things,  we  have  followed  our  natural  taste  or  in- 
clination, which  is  to  take  from  foreign  things  not 
all  we  see,  but  only  what  we  think  will  be  useful 
to  us  and  of  national  advantage ;  for  in  the  morality 
we  treat,  as  the  Greeks  and  Romans  do  in  their 
tragedies,  the  narration  of  deeds  that  are  illustri- 
ous, magnanimous,  and  virtuous,  or  true,  or  at  least 
verisimilar ;  but  we  do  otherwise  in  what  is  useful 
to  the  information  of  our  manners  and  life,  without 
subjecting  ourselves  to  any  sorrow  or  pleasure  of 
the  issue." '    It  would  seem  that  Sibilet  regards 

1  Sibilet,  Art  Po6t.  11.  8. 


II.]        THE  THEORY  OF  POETRY        199 

the  morality  as  lacking  nothing  but  the  unhappy 
ending  of  classical  tragedy.  At  the  same  time  this 
passage  exhibits  perhaps  the  first  trace  of  Aris- 
totelianism  in  French  critical  literature ;  for  Sibilet 
specifies  several  characteristic  features  of  Greek 
and  Latin  tragedy,  which  he  could  have  found  only 
in  Aristotle  or  in  the  Italians.  In  the  first  place, 
tragedy  deals  only  with  actions  that  are  grave, 
illustrious,  and  for  the  most  part  magnanimous 
or  virtuous.  In  the  second  place,  the  actions  of 
tragedy  are  either  really  true,  that  is,  historical,  or 
if  not  true,  have  all  the  appearance  of  truth,  that 
is,  they  are  verisimilar.  Thirdly,  the  end  of 
tragedy  is  always  sad  and  dolorous.  Fourthly, 
tragedy  performs  a  useful  function,  which  is  con- 
nected in  some  way  with  the  reformation  of  man- 
ners and  life;  and,  lastly,  the  effect  of  tragedy  is 
connected  with  the  sorrow  or  pleasure  brought 
about  by  the  catastrophe.  These  distinctions  antici- 
pate many  of  those  found  later  in  Scaliger  and  in 
the  French  critics. 

In  Du  Bellay  (1549)  we  find  no  traces  of  dra- 
matic theory  beyond  the  injunction,  already  noted, 
that  the  French  should  substitute  classical  tragedy 
and  comedy  for  the  old  morality  and  farce.  A  few 
years  later,  however,  in  Pelletier  (1555),  there  ap- 
pears an  almost  complete  system  of  dramatic 
criticism.  He  urges  the  French  to  attempt  the 
composition  of  tragedy  and  comedy.  "  This  species 
of  poetry,"  he  says,  "  will  bring  honor  to  the  French 
language,  if  it  is  attempted,"  —  a  remark  which 
illustrates  the  innate  predisposition  of  the  French 


200         LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

for  dramatic  poetry.^  He  then  proceeds  to  dis- 
tinguish tragedy  from  comedy  much  in  the  same 
manner  as  Scaliger  does  six  years  later.  It  is  to 
be  remembered  that  Pelletier's  Art  Poetique  was 
published  at  Lyons  in  1555,  while  Scaliger's  Poetics 
was  published  at  the  same  place  in  1561.  Pelletier 
may  have  known  Scaliger  personally ;  but  it  is 
more  probable  that  Pelletier  derived  his  informa- 
tion from  the  same  classical  and  traditional  sources 
as  did  Scaliger.  At  all  events,  Pelletier  distin- 
guishes tragedy  from  comedy  in  regard  to  style, 
subject,  characters,  and  ending  in  exact  Scaligerian 
fashion.  Comedy  has  nothing  in  common  with 
tragedy  except  the  fact  that  neither  can  have  more 
or  less  than  five  acts.  The  style  and  diction  of 
comedy  are  popular  and  colloquial,  while  those  of 
tragedy  are  most  dignified  and  sublime.  The  comic 
characters  are  men  of  low  condition,  while  those  of 
tragedy  are  kings,  princes,  and  great  lords.  The 
conclusion  of  comedy  is  always  joyous,  that  of 
tragedy  is  always  sorrowful  and  heart-rending. 
The  themes  of  tragedy  are  deaths,  exiles,  and 
unhappy  changes  of  fortune ;  those  of  comedy  are 
the  loves  and  passions  of  young  men  and  young 
women,  the  indulgence  of  mothers,  the  wiles  of 
slaves,  and  the  diligence  of  nurses. - 

By  this  time,  then,  Aristotle's  theory  of  tragedy, 
as  restated  by  the  Italians,  had  become  part  of 
French  criticism.  The  actual  practice  of  the  French 
drama  had  been  modified  by  the  introduction  of 
these  rules ;  and  they  had  played  so  important  a 
1  Pelletier,  Art  Po^t.  ii.  7.  «  Ibid. 


II.]        THE  THEORY  OF  POETRY       201 

part  that  Grevin,  in  his  Bref  Discours  pour  V Intelli- 
gence de  ce  TJiedtre,  prefixed  to  his  Mort  de  Cesar 
(1562),  could  say  that  French  tragedy  had  already 
attained  perfection,  even  Avhen  regarded  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  Aristotelian  canons.  "  Our  trage- 
dies," says  Grevin,  ^'have  been  so  well  polished 
that  there  is  nothing  left  now  to  be  desired,  —  I 
speak  of  those  which  are  composed  according  to 
the  rules  of  Aristotle  and  Horace."  Grevin's  Dis- 
cours  was  published  the  year  after  Scaliger's  Poetics, 
but  shows  no  indication  of  Scaligerian  influence. 
His  definition  of  tragedy  is  based  on  a  most  vague 
and  incomplete  recollection  of  Aristotle,  "Tragedy, 
as  Aristotle  says  in  his  Poetics,  is  an  imitation  or 
representation  of  some  action  that  is  illustrious  and 
great  in  itself,  such  as  the  death  of  Caesar."  He 
shows  his  independence  or  his  ignorance  of  Scaliger 
by  insisting  on  the  inferiority  of  Seneca,  whom 
Scaliger  had  rated  above  all  the  Greeks ;  and  he 
shows  his  independence  of  the  ancients  by  substi- 
tuting a  crowd  of  Caesar's  soldiers  for  the  singers 
of  the  older  chorus,  on  the  ground  that  there  ought 
not  to  be  singing  in  the  representation  of  tragedy 
any  more  than  there  is  in  actual  life  itself,  for 
tragedy  is  a  representation  of  truth  or  of  what  has 
the  appearance  of  truth.  There  are  in  Grevin's 
Discours  several  indications  that  the  national  feel- 
ing had  not  been  entirely  destroyed  by  the  imita- 
tion of  the  classics ;  but  a  discussion  of  this  must 
be  left  for  a  later  chapter. 

In  Jean  de  la  Taille's  Art  de  Tragedie,  prefixed 
to  his.  Saul  le  Furieux  (1572),  a  drama  in  which  a 


202  LITERAKY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

biblical  theme  is  fashioned  after  the  manner  of 
classical  tragedy,  there  is  to  be  found  the  most  ex- 
plicit and  distinct  antagonism  to  the  old,  irregular 
moralities,  which  are  not  modelled  according  to  the 
true  art  and  the  pattern  of  the  ancients.  They  are 
but  amoves  epiceries  —  words  that  recall  Du  Bellay. 
But  curiously  enough,  Jean  de  la  Taille  differs 
entirely  from  Grevin,  and  asserts  positively  that 
France  had  as  yet  no  real  tragedies,  except  pos- 
sibly a  few  translated  from  the  classics.  Waging 
war,  as  he  is,  against  the  crude  formlessness  of  the 
national  drama,  perfect  construction  assumes  for 
him  a  very  high  importance.  "The  principal 
point  in  tragedy,"  he  says,  "is  to  know  how  to 
dispose  and  fashion  it  well,  so  that  the  plot  is  well 
intertwined,  mingled,  interrupted,  and  resumed, 
.  .  .  and  that  there  is  nothing  useless,  without 
purpose,  or  out  of  place."  For  Jean  de  la  Taille, 
as  for  most  Renaissance  writers,  tragedy  is  the 
least  popular  and  the  most  elegant  and  elevated 
form  of  poetry,  exclusive  of  the  epic.  It  deals 
with  the  pitiful  ruin  of  great  lords,  with  the  in- 
constancy of  fortune,  with  banishment,  war,  pesti- 
lence, famine,  captivity,  and  the  execrable  cruelty 
of  tyrants.^  The  end  of  tragedy  is  in  fact  to  move 
and  to  sting  the  feelings  and  the  emotions  of  men. 
The  characters  of  tragedy  —  and  this  is  the  Aris- 
totelian conception  —  should  be  neither  extremely 
bad,  such  men  as  by  their  crimes  merit  punishment, 
nor  perfectly  good  and  holy,  like  Socrates,  who  was 
wrongfully  put  to  death.  Invented  or  allegorical 
1  Robert,  app.  iii. 


II.]        THE  THEORY  OF  POETRY       203 

characters,  such  as  Death,  Avarice,  or  Truth,  are 
not  to  be  employed.  At  the  same  time,  Jean  de 
la  Taille,  like  Grevin,  is  not  averse  to  the  use  of 
scriptural  subjects  in  tragedy,  although  he  cautions 
the  poet  against  long-winded  theological  discussions. 
The  Senecan  drama  was  his  model  in  treating  of 
tragedy,  as  it  was  indeed  that  of  the  Renaissance 
in  general ;  and  tragedy  approached  more  and  more 
closely  to  the  oratorical  and  sententious  manner  of 
the  Latin  poet.  Ronsard,  for  example,  asserts  that 
tragedy  and  comedy  are  entirely  didascaliques  et  en- 
seignantes,  and  should  be  enriched  by  numerous  ex- 
cellent and  rare  sentences  {sententioi),  "  for  in  a  few 
words  the  drama  must  teach  much,  being  the  mir- 
ror of  human  life."  ^  Similarly,  Du  Bellay  advises 
poets  to  embellish  their  poetry  with  grave  sen- 
tences, and  Pelletier  praises  Seneca  principally  be- 
cause he  is  sentencieux. 

Vauquelin,  in  his  Art  Poetique,  gives  a  metrical 
paraphrase  of  Aristotle's  definition  of  tragedy :  — 

"  Mais  le  sujet  tragic  est  un  fait  imit6 
De  chose  juste  et  grave,  en  ses  vers  limits ; 
Auquel  on  y  doit  voir  de  I'affreux,  du  terrible, 
Un  fait  non  attendu,  qui  tienne  de  I'horrible, 
Du  pitoyable  aussi,  le  coeur  attendrissant 
D'un  tigre  furieux,  d'un  lion  rugissant." " 

The  subject  of  tragedy  should  be  old,  and  should 
be  connected  with  the  fall  of  great  tyrants  and 
princes ;  ^  and  in  regard  to  the  number  of  acts,  the 
number  of  interlocutors  on  the  stage,  the  deus  ex 

1  Ronsard,  ill.  18  sq.  2  ^rt  Poet.  iii.  153. 

3  Ibid.  ii.  1113,  441. 


204         LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

macMna,  and  the  chorus,^  Vauquelin  merely  para- 
phrases Horace.  Comedy  is  defined  as  the  imi- 
tation of  an  action  which  by  common  usage  is 
accounted  wicked,  but  which  is  not  so  wicked  that 
there  is  no  remedy  for  it;  thus,  for  example,  a 
man  who  has  seduced  a  young  girl  may  recompense 
her  by  taking  her  in  marriage.^  Hence  while  the 
actions  of  tragedy  are  "virtuous,  magnificent,  and 
grand,  royal,  and  sumptuous,"  the  incidents  of 
comedy  are  actually  and  ethically  of  a  lower  grade.^ 
For  tragi-comedy  Vauquelin  has  nothing  but  con- 
tempt. It  is,  in  fact,  a  bastard  form,  since  the 
tragedy  with  a  happy  ending  serves  a  similar  but 
more  dignified  purpose.  Vauquelin,  like  Boileau 
and  most  other  French  critics  after  him,  follows 
Aristotle  at  length  in  the  description  of  dramatic 
recognitions  and  reversals  of  fortune.*  Most  of  the 
other  Aristotelian  distinctions  are  also  to  be  found 
in  his  work. 

In  the  Art  PoStique  frangois  of  Pierre  de  Laudun, 
Sieiir  d'Aigaliers,  published  in  1598,  these  distinc- 
tions reappear  in  a  more  or  less  mutilated  form. 
In  the  fifth  and  last  book  of  this  treatise,  De  Laudun 
follows  the  Italian  scholars,  especially  Scaliger  and 
Viperano.  He  does  not  differ  essentially  from 
Scaliger  in  the  definition  of  tragedy,  in  the  division 
into  acts  and  the  place  of  the  chorus,  in  the  discus- 
sion of  the  characters  and  subjects  of  tragedy,  and 
in  the  distinction   between  tragedy  and  comedy." 

1  Art  Po^t.  ii.  4.59.  »  /?,/<^.  uj.  isi. 

2  Ibid.  iii.  143.  ^  jijia.  iu.  189  sq. 

6  Robert,  app.  iv. 


{ 


II.]        THE  THEORY  OF  TOETRY       205 

His  conception  of  tragedy  is  in  keeping  with  the 
usual  Senecan  ideal ;  it  should  be  adorned  by  fre- 
quent sentences,  allegories,  similitudes,  and  other 
ornaments  of  poetry.  The  more  cruel  and  sangui- 
nary the  tragic  action  is,  the  more  excellent  it  will 
be ;  but  at  the  same  time,  much  that  makes  the  ac- 
tion cruel  is  to  be  enacted  only  behind  the  stage. 
Like  Pelletier,  he  objects  to  the  introduction  of  all 
allegorical  and  invented  characters,  or  even  gods 
and  goddesses,  on  the  ground  that  these  are  not 
actual  beings,  and  hence  are  out  of  keeping  with 
the  theme  of  tragedy,  which  must  be  real  and  his- 
torical. De  Laudun  has  also  something  to  say  con- 
cerning the  introduction  of  ghosts  in  the  tragic 
action ;  and  his  discussion  is  peculiarly  interesting 
when  we  remember  that  it  was  almost  at  this  very 
time,  in  England,  that  the  ghost  played  so  impor- 
tant a  part  in  the  Shakespearian  drama.  "  If  the 
ghosts  appear  before  the  action  begins,"  says  De 
Laudun,  "they  are  permissible;  but  if  they  appear 
during  the  course  of  the  action,  and  speak  to  the 
actors  themselves,  they  are  entirely  faidty  and  rep- 
rehensible." De  Laudun  borrowed  from  Scaliger 
the  scheme  of  the  ideal  tragedy :  "  The  first  act 
contains  the  complaints ;  the  second,  the  suspicions ; 
the  third,  the  counsels ;  the  fourth,  the  menaces 
and  preparations ;  the  fifth,  the  fulfilment  and  effu- 
sion of  blood."  ^  But  despite  his  subservience  to 
Scaliger,  he  is  not  afraid  to  express  his  indepen- 
dence of  the  ancients.  We  are  not,  he  says,  en- 
tirely bound  to  their  laws,  especially  in  the  number 
1  Art  Po€t.  V.  6. 


206  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

of  actors  on  the  stage,  which  according  to  classic 
usage  never  exceeded  three  ;  for  nowadays,  notwith- 
standing the  counsels  of  Aristotle  and  Horace,  an 
audience  has  not  the  patience  to  be  satisfied  with 
only  two  or  three  persons  at  one  time. 

The  history  of  the  dramatic  unities  in  France 
during  the  sixteenth  century  demands  some  atten- 
tion. That  they  had  considerable  effect  on  the 
actual  practice  of  dramatic  composition  from  the 
very  advent  of  the  Pleiade  is  quite  obvious ;  for  in 
the  first  scene  of  the  first  French  tragedy,  the 
CMopdtre  of  Jodelle  (1552),  there  is  an  allusion  to 
the  unity  of  time,  which  Corneille  was  afterward 
to  call  the  r^gle  des  regies :  — 

•'  Avant  que  ce  soleil,  qui  vient  ores  de  naitre, 
Ayant  trac6  son  jour  chez  sa  tante  se  plonge, 
Cl^op§.tre  mourra ! " 

In  1553  Mellin  de  Saint-Gelais  translated  Trissino's 
Sofonisba  into  French,  and  the  influence  of  the  Italian 
drama  became  fixed  in  France.  But  the  first  distinct 
formulation  of  the  unities  is  to  be  found  in  Jean  de  la 
Taille's  Art  de  Tragedie  (1572).  His  statement  of 
the  unities  is  explicit,  "II  faut  toujours  representer 
I'histoire  on  le  jeu  en  un  meme  jour,  en  un  meme 
temps,  et  en  un  m@me  lieu."  ^  Jean  de  la  Taille 
was  indebted  for  this  to  Castelvetro,  who  two  years 
before  had  stated  it  thus,  "La  mutatione  trag- 
ica  non  puo  tirar  con  esso  seco  se  non  una  giornata 
6  un  luogo."  ^  The  unity  of  time  was  adopted  by 
Ronsard  about  this  same  time  in  the  following 
words :  — 

1  Robert,  app.  iii.  ^  Poetica,  p.  534. 


II.]        THE  THEORY  OF  POETRY       207 

"  Tragedy  and  comedy  are  circumscribed  and  limited  to  a 
short  space  of  time,  that  is,  to  one  whole  day.  The  most 
excellent  masters  of  this  craft  commence  their  works  from 
one  midnight  to  another,  and  not  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  in 
order  to  have  greater  compass  and  length  of  time.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  heroic  poem,  which  is  entirely  of  a  martial 
character  (tout  guerrier),  comprehends  only  the  actions  of 
one  whole  year."  i 

This  passage  is  without  doubt  borrowed  from 
Minturno  (1564) :  — 

"  Whoever  regards  well  the  works  of  the  most  admired 
ancient  authors  will  find  that  the  materials  of  scenic  poetry 
terminate  in  one  day,  or  do  not  pass  beyond  the  space  of  two 
days ;  just  as  the  action  of  the  epic  poem,  however  great  and 
however  long  it  may  be,  does  not  occupy  more  than  one 
year."  2 

Minturno,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  the  first  to 
limit  the  action  of  the  heroic  poem  to  one  year.  In 
another  passage  he  deduces  the  rule  from  the  prac- 
tice of  Virgil  and  Homer ;  ^  but  Ronsard  seems  to 
think  that  Virgil  himself  has  not  obeyed  this  law. 
We  have  already  alluded  to  the  influence  of  Minturno 
on  the  Pleiads.  Vauquelin  de  la  Fresnaye,  who  ex- 
plicitly acknowledges  his  indebtedness  to  Minturno, 
also  follows  him  in  limiting  the  action  of  the  drama 
to  one  day  and  that  of  the  epic  to  one  year :  — 

"Or  comme  eux  I'heroic  suivant  le  droit  sentier, 
Doit  son  ceuvre  comprendre  au  cours  d'un  an  entier ; 
Le  tragic,  le  comic,  dedans  une  journee 
Comprend  ce  que  fait  1' autre  au  cours  de  son  annee  : 
Le  theatre  jamais  ne  doit  estre  rempli 
D'un  argument  plus  long  que  d'un  jour  accompli."  * 

1  Ronsard,  ill.  19.  3  ji^id.  p.  12 ;  De  Foeta,  p.  149. 

a  Arte  Poetica,  p.  71.  ^  j^rt  Po^t.  ii.  253. 


208         LTTERATIY  CRITICISM  IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

The  two  last  lines  of  this  passage  bear  considerable 
resemblance  to  Boileau's  famous  statement  of  the 
unities  three-quarters  of  a  century  later.  ^ 

Toward  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  then, 
the  unity  of  time,  and  in  a  less  degree  the  unity 
of  place,  had  become  almost  inviolable  laws  of  the 
drama.  But  at  this  very  period  strong  notes  of 
revolt  against  the  tyranny  of  the  vmities  begin  to 
be  heard.  Up  to  this  time  the  classical  Italian 
drama  had  been  the  pattern  for  French  playwrights ; 
but  the  irregular  Spanish  drama  was  now  com- 
mencing to  exert  considerable  influence  in  France, 
and  with  this  Spanish  influence  came  the  Spanish 
opposition  to  the  unities.  In  1582  Jean  de  Beau- 
breuil,  in  the  preface  of  his  tragedy  of  Regidus,  had 
spoken  with  contempt  of  the  rule  of  twenty-four 
hours  as  trop  superstitieux.  But  De  Laudun  was 
probably  the  first  European  critic  to  argue  formally 
against  it.  The  concluding  chapter  of  his  Art 
Poitique  (1598)  gives  five  different  reasons  why  the 
unity  of  time  should  not  be  observed  in  the  drama. 
The  chapter  is  entitled,  "  Concerning  those  who  say 
that  the  action  of  tragedy  must  conclude  in  a  single 
day  ;  "  and  De  Laudun  begins  by  asserting  that  this 
opinion  had  never  been  sustained  by  any  good 
author.  This  is  fairly  conclusive  evidence  that  De 
Laudun  had  never  directly  consulted  Aristotle's 
Poetics,  but  was  indebted  for  his  knowledge  of 
Aristotle  to  the  Italians,  and  especially  to  Scaliger. 
The  five  arguments  which  he  formulates  against  the 
unity  of  time  are  as  follows :  — 

1  Boileau,  Art  Poit.  iii.  45. 


II.]        THE  THEORY  OF  POETRY       209 

"In  the  first  place,  this  law,  if  it  is  observed  by  any 
of  the  ancients,  need  not  force  us  to  restrict  our  tragedies  in 
any  way,  since  we  are  not  bound  by  their  manner  of  writing 
or  by  the  measure  of  feet  and  syllables  with  which  they  com- 
pose their  verses.  In  the  second  place,  if  we  were  forced  to 
observe  this  rigorous  law,  we  should  faU  into  one  of  the 
greatest  of  absurdities,  by  being  obliged  to  introduce  impos- 
sible and  incredible  things  in  order  to  enhance  the  beauty  of 
our  tragedies,  or  else  they  would  lack  all  grace  ;  for  besides 
being  deprived  of  matter,  we  could  not  embellish  our  poems 
with  long  discourses  and  various  interesting  events.  In  the 
third  place,  the  action  of  the  Troades,  an  excellent  tragedy 
by  Seneca,  could  not  have  occurred  in  one  day,  nor  could 
even  some  of  the  plays  of  Euripides  or  Sophocles.  In  the 
fourth  place,  according  to  the  definition  already  given  [on 
the  authority  of  Aristotle],  tragedy  is  the  recital  of  the  lives 
of  heroes,  the  fortune  and  grandeur  of  kings,  princes,  and 
others  ;  and  all  this  could  not  be  accomplished  in  one  day. 
Besides,  a  tragedy  must  contain  five  acts,  of  which  the  first 
is  joyous,  and  the  succeeding  ones  exhibit  a  gradual  change, 
as  I  have  already  indicated  above;  and  this  change  a  single 
day  would  not  suifice  to  bring  about.  In  the  fifth  and  last 
place,  the  tragedies  in  which  this  rule  is  observed  are  not  any 
better  than  the  tragedies  in  which  it  is  not  observed  ;  and 
the  tragic  poets,  Greek  and  Latin,  or  even  French,  do  not 
and  need  not  and  cannot  observe  it,  since  very  often  in  a 
tragedy  the  whole  life  of  a  prince,  king,  emperor,  noble,  or 
other  person  is  represented  ;  —  besides  a  thousand  other 
reasons  which  I  could  advance  if  time  permitted,  but  which 
must  be  left  for  a  second  edition."  ^ 

The  history  of  the  unity  of  time  during  the  nexb 
century  does  not  strictly  concern  us  here;  but  it 
may  be  well  to  point  out  that  it  was  through  the 
offices  of  Chapelain,  seconded  by  the  authority  of 
Cardinal  Richelieu,   that   it  became   fixed  in   the 

,  1  Arnaud,  app.  iii. 

P 


210         LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

dramatic  theory  of  France.  In  a  long  letter,  dating 
from  November,  1630,  and  recently  published  for 
the  first  time,  Chapelain  sets  out  to  answer  all  the 
objections  made  against  the  rule  of  twenty-four 
hours.  It  is  sustained,  he  says,  by  the  practice  of 
the  ancients  and  the  universal  consensus  of  the 
Italians ;  but  his  own  proof  is  based  on  reason 
alone.  It  is  the  old  argument  of  vraisemhlance,  as 
found  in  Maggi,  Scaliger,  and  especially  Castelvetro, 
whom  Chapelain  seems  in  part  to  follow.  By  1635 
he  had  formulated  the  whole  theory  of  the  three 
unities  and  converted  Cardinal  Richelieu  to  his 
views.  In  the  previous  year  Mairet's  Soplionisbe,  the 
first  "  regular  "  French  tragedy,  had  been  produced. 
In  1636  the  famous  Cid  controversy  had  begun. 
By  1640  the  battle  was  gained,  and  the  unities  be- 
came a  part  of  the  classic  theory  of  the  drama 
throughout  Europe.  A  few  years  later  their  prac- 
tical application  was  most  thoroughly  indicated  by 
the  Abbe  d'Aubignac,  in  his  Pratique  du  TMdtre; 
and  they  were  definitely  formulated  for  all  time  by 
Boileau  in  the  celebrated  couplet :  — 

"  Qu'en  un  lieu,  qu'en  un  jour,  un  seul  fait  accompli 
Tienne  jusqu'^  la  fin  le  theatre  rempli."^ 

III.   Heroic  Poetry 

It  was  the  supreme  ambition  of  the  Pl^iade  to 
produce  a  great  French  epic.  In  the  very  first 
manifesto  of  the  new  school,  Du  liellay  urges  every 
French  poet  to  attempt  another  Iliad  or  ^neid  for 

1  Art  Po^t.  iii.  45. 


II.]  THE  THEORY  OF  POETRY  211 

the  honor  and  glory  of  France.  For  Pelletier 
(1555)  the  heroic  poem  is  the  one  that  really  gives 
the  true  title  of  poet ;  it  may  be  compared  to  the 
ocean,  and  all  other  forms  to  rivers.^  He  seems  to 
be  following  Giraldi  Cintio's  discourse  on  the  romanzi, 
published  the  year  before  his  own  work,  when  he 
says  that  the  French  poet  should  write  a  Heradeid, 
the  deeds  of  Hercules  furnishing  the  mightiest  and 
most  heroic  material  he  can  think  of.*  At  the  same 
time  Virgil  is  for  him  the  model  of  an  epic  poet ; 
and  his  parallel  between  Homer  and  Virgil  bears 
striking  resemblance  to  the  similar  parallel  in  Cap- 
riano's  Delia  Vera  Poetica,  published  in  the  very 
same  year  as  his  own  treatise.^  Like  Capriano, 
Pelletier  censures  the  superfluous  exuberance,  the 
loquaciousness,  the  occasional  indecorum,  and  the 
inferiority  in  eloquence  and  dignity  of  Homer  when 
compared  with  the  Latin  poet. 

It  was  Ronsard's  personal  ambition  to  be  the 
French  Virgil,  as  in  lyric  poetry  he  had  been  pro- 
claimed the  French  Pindar.  For  twenty  years  he 
labored  on  the  Franciade,  but  never  finished  it. 
In  the  two  prefaces  which  he  wrote  for  it,  the  first 
in  1572,  and  the  second  (published  posthumously) 
about  1584,  he  attempts  to  give  expression  to  his 
ideal  of  the  heroic  poet.  In  neither  of  them  does 
he  succeed  in  formulating  any  very  definite  or  con- 
sistent body  of  epic  theory.  They  are  chiefly  inter- 
esting in  that  they  indicate  the  general  tendencies  of 
the  Pleiade,  and  show  Ronsard's  own  rhetorical  prin- 

1  Art  Po6t.  ii.  8.  2  md.  i.  3. 

8  Ibid.  i.  5.    Cf.  Capriano,  cap.  v. 


212         LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

ciples,  and  his  feeling  for  nature  and  natural  beauty. 
The  passage  has  already  been  cited  in  which  he 
speaks  of  the  heroic  poem  as  entirely  of  a  martial 
character,  and  limits  its  action  to  the  space  of  one 
year.  It  has  also  been  seen  that  for  him,  as  for  the 
Italians,  verisimilitude,  and  not  fact,  is  the  test  of 
poetry.  At  the  same  time,  the  epic  poet  is  to  avoid 
anachronisms  and  misstatements  of  fact.  Such 
faults  do  not  disturb  the  reader  so  much  when  the 
story  is  remote  in  point  of  time ;  and  the  poet 
should  therefore  always  use  an  argument,  the  events 
of  which  are  at  least  three  or  four  hundred  years 
old.  The  basis  of  the  work  should  rest  upon  some 
old  story  of  past  times  and  of  long-established  re- 
nown, which  has  gained  the  credit  of  men.^  This 
notion  of  the  antiquity  of  the  epic  fable  had  been 
accepted  long  ago  by  the  Italians.  It  is  stated,  for 
example,  in  Tasso's  Discorsi  dell'  Arte  Poetica, 
written  about  1564,  though  not  published  until 
1687,  fifteen  years  after  Tasso  had  visited  Ronsard 
in  Paris. 

Vauquelin  de  la  Fresnaye  has  the  Pleiade  venera- 
tion for  heroic  poetry;  but  he  cannot  be  said  to 
exhibit  any  more  definite  conception  of  its  form 
and  function.  For  him  the  epic  is  a  vast  and 
magnificent  narration,  a  world  in  itself,  wherein 
men,  things,  and  thoughts  are  wondrously  mir- 
rored :  — 

"  C'eBt  un  tableau  du  monde,  un  miroir  qui  raporte 
Les  gestes  des  mortels  en  differente  sorte.  .  .  . 

1  Ronsard,  iii.  23,  29.  ' 


II.]        THE  THEOKY  OF  POETRY       213 

Car  toute  poesie  il  contient  en  soym^me, 

Soit  tragique  ou  comique,  ou  soit  autre  poeme."  ^ 

With  this  we  may  compare  what  Muzio  had  said  in 
1551:  — 

*'  II  poema  sovrano  6  una  pittura 
De  1' universe,  e  per6  in  s6  comprende 
Ogni  stilo,  ogni  forma,  ogni  ritratto." 

But  despite  this  very  vague  conception  of  the  epic 
in  the  French  Renaissance,  there  was,  as  has  been 
said,  a  high  veneration  for  it  as  a  form,  and  for  its 
masters,  Homer  and  especially  Virgil.  This  ac- 
counts for  the  large  number  of  attempts  at  epic 
composition  in  France  during  the  next  century. 
But  beyond  the  earlier  and  indefinite  notion  of 
heroic  poetry  the  French  did  not  get  for  a  long 
time  to  come.  Even  for  Boileau  the  epic  poem  was 
merely  the  vaste  r^cit  d'une  longue  action.^ 

1  Vauquelin,  Art  Po^t.  i.  471,  503. 
a  Boileau,  Art  Po6t.  ill.  161. 


CHAPTER  in 

CLASSIC     AND      ROMANTIC      ELEMENTS      IN      FRENCH 
CRITICISM   DURING   THE    SIXTEENTH   CENTURY 

The  principle  for  which  the  Pleiade  stood  was, 
like  that  of  humanism,  the  imitation  of  the  classics ; 
and  the  Pleiade  was  the  first  to  introduce  this  as 
a  literary  principle  into  Prance.  This  means,  as 
regards  Prench  literature,  in  the  first  place,  the 
substitution  of  the  classical  instead  of  its  own 
national  tradition ;  and,  secondly,  the  substitution 
of  the  imitation  of  the  classics  for  the  imitation  of 
nature  itself.  In  making  these  vital  substitutions, 
Du  Bellay  and  his  school  have  been  accused  of 
creating  once  and  for  all  the  gulf  that  separates 
French  poetry  from  the  national  life.*  This  accusa- 
tion is  perhaps  unfair  to  the  Pleiade,  which  insisted 
on  the  poet's  going  directly  to  nature,  which  empha- 
sized most  strongly  the  sentiment  for  natural  scen- 
ery and  beauty,  and  which  first  declared  the 
importance  of  the  artisan  and  the  peasant  as  sub- 
jects for  poetry.  But  there  can  be  but  little  doubt 
that  the  separation  of  poetry  from  the  national  life 
was  the  logical  outcome  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
Pleiade.  In  disregarding  the  older  Prench  poets 
and  the  evolution  of  indigenous  poetry,  in  formu- 

1  Brunetiiire,  i.  45. 
214 


CHAP.  III.]    ELERIENTS  IN  FRENCH  CRITICISM     215 

lating  an  ideal  of  the  poet  as  an  unsociable  and 
ascetic  character,  it  separated  itself  from  the  nat- 
ural tendencies  of  French  life  and  letters,  and 
helped  to  effect  the  final  separation  between  poetry 
and  the  national  development.     - 

I.   Classical  Elements 

It  was  to  Du  Bellay  (1549)  that  France  owes  the 
introduction  of  classical  ideas  into  French  litera- 
ture. He  was  the  first  to  regard  the  imitation  of 
the  classics  as  a  literary  principle,  and  to  advise  the 
poet,  after  the  manner  of  Vida,  to  purloin  all 
the  treasures  of  Greek  and  Latin  literature  for  the 
benefit  of  French  poetry.  Moreover,  he  first  formu- 
lated the  aristocratic  conception  of  the  poet  held 
by  the  Pleiade.  The  poet  was  advised  to  flee  from 
the  ignorant  people,  to  bury  himself  in  the  soli- 
tude of  his  own  chamber,  to  dream  and  to  ponder^ 
and  to  content  himself  with  few  readers.  "  Beyond 
everything,"  says  Du  Bellay,  "  the  poet  should  have 
one  or  more  learned  friends  to  whom  he  can  show 
all  his  verses ;  he  should  converse  not  only  with 
learned  men,  but  with  all  sorts  of  workmen, 
mechanics,  artists,  and  others,  in  order  to  learn 
the  technical  terms  of  their  arts,  for  use  in  beau- 
tiful descriptions."  ^  This  was  a  favorite  theory  of 
the  Pleiade,  which  like  some  of  our  own  contem- 
porary writers  regarded  the  technical  arts  as  impor- 
tant subjects  of  inspiration.  But  the  essential 
point  at  the  bottom  of  all  these  discussions  is  a  high 
1  D^ense,  ii.  11. 


216  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

contempt  for  the  opinion  of  the  vulgar  in  matters 
of  art. 

The  Quintil  Horatian  (1550)  represents,  as  has 
already  been  seen,  a  natural  reaction  against  the 
foreign  and  classical  innovations  of  the  Pleiade. 
Du  Bellay's  advice,  "  Prens  garde  que  ce  poeme  soit 
eslogne  du  vulgaire,"  —  advice  insisted  upon  by 
many  of  the  rhetoricians  of  the  Italian  Renais- 
sance, —  receives  considerable  censure ;  on  the  con- 
trary, says  the  author  of  the  Quintil,  the  poet  must 
be  understood  and  appreciated  by  all,  unlearned  as 
■well  as  learned,  just  as  Marot  was.  The  Quintil 
was,  in  fact,  the  first  work  to  insist  on  definite- 
ness  and  clearness  in  poetry,  as  these  were  after- 
ward insisted  on  by  Malherbe  and  Boileau.  Like 
Malherbe,  and  his  disciple  Deimier,  the  author 
of  the  Acadimie  de  VArt  Po4tique  (1610),  in  which 
the  influence  of  the  Quintil  is  fully  acknowledged, 
the  author  of  the  Quintil  objects  to  all  forms  of 
poetic  license,  to  all  useless  metaphors  that  obscure 
the  sense,  to  all  Latinisms  and  foreign  terms  and 
locutions.*  Du  Bellay  had  dwelt  on  the  importance 
of  a  knowledge  of  the  classical  and  Italian  tongues, 
and  had  strongly  advised  the  French  poet  to  nat- 
uralize as  many  Latin,  Greek,  and  even  Spanish 
and  Italian  terms  as  he  could.  The  Quintil  is  par- 
ticularly bitter  against  all  such  foreign  innovations. 
The  poet  need  not  know  foreign  tongues  at  all ; 
without  this  knowledge  he  can  be  as  good  a  poet  as 
any  of  the  grcecaniseurs,  latiniseurs,  et  italianiseurs 
en  fran^ys.  This  protest  availed  little,  and  Da 
1  Cf.  Rucktaschel,  p.  10  sq. 


III.]  ELEMENTS   IN   FRENCH   CRITICISM         217 

Bellay's  advice  in  regard  to  the  use  of  Italian  terms 
was  so  well  followed  that  several  years  later,  in  1578, 
Henri  Estienne  vigorously  protested  against  the 
practice  in  his  Dialogues  du  Nouveau  Langage 
frangois  Italianise.  As  Ronsard  and  Du  Bellay 
represent  the  foreign  elements  that  went  to  make 
up  classicism  in  France,  so  the  author  of  the  Quintil 
Horatian  may  be  said  to  represent  in  his  humble 
way  certain  enduring  elements  of  the  esprit  gaidois. 
He  represents  the  national  traditions,  and  he  pre- 
pares the  way  for  the  two  great  bourgeois  poets  of 
France,  —  Boileau,  with  his  "  Tout  doit  tendre  au 
bon  sens,"  and  Moliere,  with  his  bluff  cry,  "  Je 
suis  pour  le  bon  sens." 

According  to  Pelletier  (1555),  French  poetry  is 
too  much  like  colloquial  speech ;  in  order  to  equal 
classical  literature,  the  poets  of  France  must  be 
more  daring  and  less  popular.^  Pelletier's  point  of 
view  is  here  that  of  the  Pleiade,  which  aimed  at 
a  distinct  poetic  language,  diverse  from  ordinary 
prose  speech.  But  he  is  thoroughly  French,  and 
in  complete  accord  with  the  author  of  the  Quintil 
Horatian,  in  his  insistence  on  perfect  clearness  in 
poetry.  "Clearness,"  he  says,  "is  the  first  and 
worthiest  virtue  of  a  poem."^  Obscurity  is  the 
chief  fault  of  poetry,  "for  there  is  no  difference 
between  not  speaking  at  all  and  not  being  under- 
stood."^ For  these  reasons  he  is  against  all  un- 
necessary and  bombastic  ornament ;  the  true  use  of 
metaphors  and  comparisons  of  all  sorts  is  "  to  ex- 
plain and  represent  things  as  they  really  are." 
1  Art  Poit.  i.  3.  3  Ibid.  i.  9.  s  Ihid.  i.  10. 


218  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

Similarly,  Ronsard,  while  recognizing  the  value  of 
comparisons,  rightfully  used,  as  the  very  nerves 
and  tendons  of  poetry,  declares  that  if  instead  of 
perfecting  and  clarifying,  they  obscure  or  con- 
fuse the  idea,  they  are  ridiculous/  Obscurity  was 
the  chief  danger,  and  indeed  the  chief  fault,  of  the 
Pleiade;  and  it  is  no  small  merit  that  both  Ron- 
sard  and  Pelletier  perceived  this  fact. 

The  Pleiade  exhibits  the  classic  temper  in  its 
insistence  on  study  and  art  as  essential  to  poetry ; 
but  it  was  not  in  keeping  with  the  doctrines  of 
later  French  classicists  in  so  far  as  it  regarded  the 
poetic  labors  as  of  an  unsociable  and  even  ascetic 
character.  In  this,  as  has  been  seen,  Ronsard  is  a 
true  exponent  of  the  doctrines  of  the  new  school. 
But  on  the  whole  the  classic  spirit  was  strong  in 
him.  He  declares  that  the  poet's  ideas  should  be 
high  and  noble,  but  not  fantastic.  "  They  should 
be  well  ordered  and  disposed ;  and  while  they  seem 
to  transcend  those  of  the  vulgar,  they  should  always 
appear  to  be  easily  conceived  and  understood  by 
any  one."  ^  Here  Du  Bellay's  aristocratic  concep- 
tion of  poetry  is  modified  so  as  to  become  a  very 
typical  statement  of  the  principle  underlying  French 
classicism.  Again,  Ronsard  points  out,  as  Vida  and 
other  Italian  critics  had  done  before,  that  the  great 
classical  poets  seldom  speak  of  things  by  their  bare 
and  naked  names.  Virgil  does  not,  for  example, 
say,  "  It  was  night,"  or  •'  It  was  day,"  but  he  uses 
some  such  circumlocution  as  this  :  — 

"Postero  Phoebea  lustrabat  lampade  terras." 
1  Ronsard,  iii.  26  sq.  » Ibid.  vii.  323. 


III.]  ELEMENTS   IN   FRENCH   CRITICISM         219 

The  unfortunate  results  of  the  excessive  use  of  such 
circumlocutions  are  well  exemplified  in  the  later 
classicists  of  France.  Ronsard  perhaps  foresaw 
this  danger,  and  wisely  says  that  circumlocution, 
if  not  used  judiciously,  makes  the  style  inflated 
and  bombastic.  In  the  first  preface  to  the  Fraud- 
ode,  he  expresses  a  decided  preference  for  the 
naive  facility  of  Homer  over  the  artful  diligence  of 
Virgil.^  In  the  second  preface,  however,  written  a 
dozen  years  later,  and  published  posthumously  as 
revised  by  his  disciple  Binet,  there  is  interesting 
evidence,  in  the  preeminence  given  to  Virgil,  of  the 
rapidity  with  which  the  Latinization  of  culture  was 
being  effected  at  this  period.  "Our  French  au- 
thors," says  Ronsard,  "  know  Virgil  far  better  than 
they  know  Homer  or  any  other  Greek  writer." 
And  again,  "Virgil  is  the  most  excellent  and  the 
most  rounded,  the  most  compact  and  the  most  per- 
fect of  all  poets."  *  Of  the  naive  facility  of  Homer 
we  hear  absolutely  nothing. 

We  are  now  beginning  to  enter  the  era  of  rules. 
Ronsard  did  not  undervalue  the  "  rules  and  secrets  " 
of  poetry ;  and  Vauquelin  de  la  Fresnaye  calls  his 
own  critical  poem  cet  Art  de  Ragles  rechercMes.^  In 
regard  to  the  imitation  of  the  classics,  Vauquelin 
agrees  heart  and  soul  with  the  Pleiade  that  the 

ancients 

"nous  ont  desja  trac6 
Un  sentier  qui  de  nous  ne  doit  estre  laiss^."  * 

Nothing,  indeed,  could  be  more  classical  than  hia 

1  Ronsard,  iii.  9  sq.  8  Art  Po4t.  iii.  1151. 

3  Ibid.  iii.  23,  26.  *  Ibid.  i.  61. 


220         LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  FRANCE     [chap* 

comparison  of  poetry  to  a  garden  symmetrically 
laid  out  and  trimmed.^  Moreover,  like  the  classi- 
cists of  the  next  century,  he  afi&rms,  as  does  Eon- 
sard  also,  that  art  must  fundamentally  imitate  and 
resemble  nature.^ 

The  imitation  of  the  classics  had  also  a  decided 
effect  on  the  technique  of  French  verse  and  on  the 
linguistic  principles  of  the  Pleiade.  Enjambement 
(the  carrying  over  into  another  line  of  words  re- 
quired to  complete  the  sense)  and  hiatus  (the  clash 
of  vowels  in  a  line)  were  both  employed  in  Latin 
and  Greek  verse,  and  were  therefore  permitted  in 
French  poetry  by  the  new  school.  Ronsard,  how- 
ever, anticipated  the  reforms  of  Malherbe  and  the 
practice  of  French  classic  verse,  in  forbidding  both 
hiatus  and  enjambement,  though  in  a  later  work  of 
his  this  opinion  is  reversed.  He  was  also  probably 
the  first  to  insist  on  the  regular  alternation  of  mas- 
culine and  feminine  rhymes  in  verse.  This  had 
never  been  strictly  adhered  to  in  practice,  or  re- 
quired by  stringent  rule,  before  Ronsard,  but  has 
become  the  invariable  usage  of  French  poetry  ever 
since.  Ronsard  regards  this  device  as  a  means  of 
making  verse  keep  tune  more  harmoniously  with 
the  music  of  instruments.  It  was  one  of  the 
favorite  theories  of  the  Pleiade  that  poetry  is  in- 
tended, not  to  be  read,  but  to  be  recited  or  sung,  and 
that  the  Avords  and  the  notes  should  be  coupled 
lovingly  together.  Poetry  without  an  accompani- 
ment of  vocal  or  instrumental  music  exhibits  but  a 
small  part  of  its  harmony  or  perfection ;  and  while 

1  Art  Po6t.  i.  22  sq.  2  jjjd.  i.  813.     Cf.  Ronsard,  ii.  12. 


III.]         ELEMENTS  IN  FRENCH  CRITICISM         221 

composing  verses,  the  poet  should  always  pronounce 
them  aloud,  or  rather  sing  them,  in  order  to  test 
their  melody.^  This  conception  of  music  "  married 
to  immortal  verse"  doubtless  came  from  Italy,  and 
is  connected  with  the  rise  of  operatic  music.  De 
Laudun  (1598)  differs  from  the  members  of  the 
Pleiade  in  forbidding  the  use  of  words  newly 
coined  or  taken  from  the  dialects  of  France,  and 
in  objecting  to  the  use  of  enjambement  and  hiatus. 
It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  while  the  influence  of 
the  Pleiade  is  visible  throughout  De  Laudun's  trea- 
tise, his  disagreement  with  Eonsard  and  Du  Bellay 
on  a  considerable  number  of  essential  points  shows 
that  by  the  end  of  the  century  the  supremacy  of 
the  Pleiade  had  begun  to  wane. 

The  new  school  also  attempted  to  introduce  clas- 
sical metres  into  French  poetry.  The  similar  at- 
tempt at  using  the  ancient  versification  in  Italy  has 
already  been  incidentally  referred  to.^  According 
to  Vasari,  Leon  Battista  Alberti,  in  his  epistle, 

"  Questa  per  estrema  miserabile  pistola  mando," 

was  the  first  to  attempt  to  reduce  the  vernacular 
versification  to  the  measure  of  the  Latins.^  In  Octo- 
ber, 1441,  the  Scena  delV  Amicizia  of  Leonardo  Dati 
was  composed  and  recited  before  the  Accademia  Co- 
ronaria  at  Florence.*  The  first  two  parts  of  this  piece 

1  Ronsard,  vii.  320,  332. 

2  The  early  Italian  poetry  written  in  classical  metres  has 
been  collected  by  Carducci,  La  Poesia  Barbara  nei  Secoli  XV  e 
XVI,  Bologna,  1881. 

3  Carducci,  p.  2. 
*  Ihid.  p.  6  sj. 


222         LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

are  written  in  hexameters,  the  third  in  Sapphics,  the 
fourth  in  sonnet  form  and  rhymed.  The  prologues 
of  Ariosto's  comedies,  the  Negromante  and  the  Cassa- 
ria,  are  also  in  classical  metres.  But  the  remarka- 
ble collection  of  Claudio  Tolomei,  Versi  e  Regole  de 
la  Nuova  Poesia  Toscana,  published  at  Eome  in 
1539,  marked  an  epoch  in  sixteenth-century  letters. 
In  this  work  the  employment  of  classical  metres  in 
the  vulgar  tongue  is  defended,  and  rules  for  their 
use  given ;  then  follows  a  collection  of  Italian  verse 
written  after  this  fashion  by  a  large  number  of 
scholars  and  poets,  among  them  Annibal  Caro  and 
Tolomei  himself.  This  group  of  scholars  had 
formed  itself  into  an  esoteric  circle,  the  Accademia 
della  Nuova  Poesia;  and  from  the  tone  of  the 
verses  addressed  to  Tolomei  by  the  members  of 
this  circle,  it  would  seem  that  he  regarded  himself, 
and  was  regarded  by  them,  as  the  founder  and  ex- 
positor of  this  poetic  innovation.^  Luigi  Alamanni, 
whose  life  was  chiefly  spent  at  the  Court  of  France, 
published  in  1556  a  comedy.  La  Flora,  written  in 
classical  metres ;  and  two  years  later  Francesco 
Patrizzi  published  an  heroic  poem,  the  Eridano, 
written  in  hexameters,  with  a  defence  of  the  form 
of  versification  employed.^ 

This  learned  innovation  spread  throughout  west- 
ern Europe.'    In  France,  toward  the  close  of  the 

1  Carducci,  pp.  55,  87,  etc. 

2  jbid,  pp.  327,  443.    Cf.  Du  Bellay,  Defense,  ii.  7. 

8  For  the  history  of  classical  metres  in  France,  cf.  Egger, 
Hellenlsme  en  France,  p.  290  sq.,  and  Darmesteter  and  Hatr« 
feld,  Seizieme  Siecle  eu  France,  p.  113  sq. 


III.]         ELEMENTS   IN   FRENCH   CRITICISM         223 


% 


fifteenth  century,  according  to  Agrippa  d'Aubigne, 
a  certain  Mousset  had  translated  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey  into  French  hexameters  ;  but  nothing  else 
is  known  either  of  Mousset  or  of  his  translations. 
As  early  as  1500  one  Michel  de  Bouteauville,  the 
author  of  an  Art  de  mitrijier  frangois,  wrote  a  poem 
in  classical  distichs  on  the  English  war.  Sibilet 
(1548)  accepted  the  use  of  classical  metres,  though 
with  some  distrust,  for  to  him  rhyme  seemed  as 
essential  to  French  poetry  as  long  and  short  sylla- 
bles to  Greek  and  Latin.  In  1562  Kamus,  in  his 
Crrammar,  recommended  the  ancient  versification, 
and  expressed  his  regret  that  it  had  not  been  ac- 
cepted with  favor  by  the  public.  In  the  same  year 
Jacques  de  la  Taille  wrote  his  treatise.  La  Mani^re 
de  faire  des  Vers  en  frangois  comme  en  grec  et  en 
latin,  but  it  was  not  published  until  1573,  eleven 
years  after  his  death.  His  main  object  in  writing 
the  book  was  to  show  that  it  is  not  as  difficult  to 
employ  quantity  in  French  verse  as  some  people 
think,  nor  even  any  more  difficult  than  in  Greek 
and  Latin.^  In  answer  to  the  objection  that  the 
vulgar  tongues  are  by  their  nature  incapable  of 
quantity,  he  argues,  after  the  manner  of  Du  Bellay, 
that  such  things  do  not  proceed  from  the  nature  of 
a  language,  but  from  the  labor  and  diligence  of 
those  who  employ  it.  He  is  tired  of  vulgar  rhymes, 
and  is  anxious  to  find  a  more  ingenious  and  more 

1  Estienne  Pasquier,  in  his  Recherches  de  la  France,  vii.  11, 
attempts  to  prove  that  the  French  language  is  capable  of  em- 
ploying quantity  in  its  verse,  hut  does  not  decide  whether 
quantity  or  rhymed  verse  is  to  be  preferred. 


224         LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

« 
difficult  path  to  Parnassus.     He  then  proceeds  to 
treat  of  quantity  and  measure  in  French,  of  feet 
and  verse,  and  of  figures  and  poetic  license.^ 

The  name  most  inseparably  connected  with  the 
introduction  of  classical  metres  into  France  in  the 
sixteenth  century  is  that  of  Jean  Antoine  de  Baif. 
This  young  member  of  the  Pleiade,  after  publishing 
several  unsuccessful  volumes  of  verse,  visited  Italy, 
and  was  present  at  the  Council  of  Trent  in  1563. 
In  Italy  he  doubtless  learnt  of  the  metrical  innovar' 
tions  then  being  employed;  and  upon  his  return, 
without  any  apparent  knowledge  of  Jacques  de  la 
Taille's  as  yet  unpublished  treatise,  he  set  about  to 
make  a  systematic  reform  in  French  versification. 
His  purpose  was  to  bring  about  a  more  perfect  uni- 
son between  poetry  and  music;  and  in  order  to 
accomplish  this,  he  adopted  classical  metres,  based 
as  they  were  on  a  musical  prosody,  and  accepted 
the  phonetic  reforms  of  Ramus.  He  also  estab- 
lished, no  doubt  in  imitation  of  the  Accademia  della 
Nuova  Poesia,  the  Academic  de  Poesie  et  de  Mu- 
sique,  authorized  by  letters  patent  from  Charles  IX. 
in  November,  1570.^  The  purpose  of  this  ccademy 
was  to  encourage  and  establish  the  metrical  and 
musical  innovations  advocated  by  Baif  and  his 
friends.  On  the  death  of  Charles  IX.  the  society's 
existence  was  menaced ;  but  it  was  restored,  with  a 

1  Cy.  Rucktiischel,  p.  24  sq.,  and  Carducci,  p.  413  sq. 

2  This  academy  has  been  made  the  subject  of  an  excellent 
monograph  by  l5.  Fremy,  L'Acadeniie  des  Derniers  Valois, 
Paris,  n.  d.  Tho  statutes  of  the  academy  will  be  found  on  page  39 
of  this  work,  and  the  letters-patent  grayted  to  it  by  Charles  IX. 
on  page  48. 


III.]         ELEMENTS  IN  FRENCH  CRITICISM         225 

broader  purpose  and  function,  as  the  Academie  du 
Palais,  by  Guy  du  Faur  de  Pibrac  in  1576,  under 
the  protection  of  Henry  III.,  and  it  continued  to_ 
flourish  until  dispersed  by  the  turmoils  of  the 
League  about  1585.  But  Baif' s  innovations  were 
not  entirely  without  fruit.  A  similar  movement, 
and  a  not  dissimilar  society,  will  be  found  some- 
what later  in  Elizabethan  England. 

II.   Romantic  Elements 

Some  of  the  romantic  elements  in  the  critical 
theory  oi  the  Pleiade  have  already  been  indicated. 
The  new  movement  started,  in  Du  Bellay's  DAfense, 
T/^ith  a  high  conception  of  the  poet's  office.  It  em- 
phasized the  necessity,  on  the  riart  of  the  poet,  of 
profound  and  solitary  ^tudy,  of  a  refined  and 
ascetic  life,  and  of  entire  separation  from  vulgar 
people  and  pleasures.  Du  Bcllay  himself  is  roman- 
tic in  that  he  decides  against  the  traditions  de  r^gles,^ 
deeming  the  good  judgment  of  the  poet  sufficient 
in  matters  of  taste ;  but  the  reason  of  this  was  that 
there  were  no  rules  which  he  would  have  been  will- 
ing to  accept.  It  took  more  than  a  century  for  the 
French  mind  to  r.rrive  at  the  conclusion  that  reason 
and  rules,  in  matters  of  art,  proceed  from  one  and 
the  same  cause. 

The  feeling  for  nature  and  for  natural  beauty  is 
very  marked  in  all  the  members  of  the  Pldiade. 
Pelletier  speaks  of  war,  love,  agriculture,  and  pas- 
toral life  as  the  chief  themes  of  poetry.^    He  warns 

1  D4fense,  ii.  11.  2  Art  Poit.  i.  3. 

Q 


226         LITERAKY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

the  poet  to  observe  nature  and  life  itself,  and  not 
depend  on  books  alone  ;  and  he  dwells  on  the  value 
of  descriptions  of  landscapes,  tempests,  and  sunrises, 
and  similar  natural  scenes.^  The  feeling  for  nature 
is  even  more  intense  in  Konsard  ;  and  like  Pelletier, 
he  urges  the  poet  to  describe  in  verse  the  rivers, 
forests,  mountains,  winds,  the  sea,  gods  and  god- 
desses, sunrise,  night,  and  noon,^  In  another  place 
the  poet  is  advised  to  embellish  his  work  with  ac- 
counts of  trees,  flowers,  and  herbs,  especially  those 
dignified  by  some  medicinal  or  magical  virtues,  and 
with  descriptions  of  rivers,  towns,  forests,  moun- 
tains, caverns,  rocks,  harbors,  and  forts.  Here  the 
appreciation  of  natural  beauty  as  introduced  into 
modern  Europe  by  the  Italian  Renaissance  —  the 
feeling  for  nature  in  its  wider  aspects,  the  broad 
landscape,  the  distant  prospect  —  first  becomes 
visible  in  France.  "  In  the  painting  or  rather  imi- 
tation of  nature,"  says  Ronsard,  "  consists  the  very 
sovd  of  heroic  poetry." 

Ronsard  also  gives  warning  that  ordinary  speech 
is  not  to  be  banished  from  poetry,  or  too  much 
evaded,  for  by  doing  so  the  poet  is  dealing  a  death- 
blow to  "  naive  and  natural  poetry."  ^  This  sympa- 
thy for  the  simple  and  popular  forms  of  poetry  as 
models  for  the  poetic  artist  is  characteristic  of  the 
Pleiade.  There  is  a  very  interesting  passage  in 
Montaigne,  in  which  the  popular  ballads  of  the 
peasantry  are  praised  in  a  manner  that  recalls  the 
famous    words    of    Sir    Philip    Sidney   concerning 

1  An  Poit.  ii.  10 ;  i.  9.  2  Ronsard,  vii.  321,  324. 

«  Ibid.  iii.  17  sq. 


III.]         ELEMENTS  IN  FRENCH  CRITICISM         227 

the  old  song  of  Percy  and  Douglas/  and  which 
seems  to  anticipate  the  interest  in  popular  poetry 
in  England  two  centuries  later :  — 

*'  Popular  and  purely  natural  and  indigenous  poetry  has 
a  certain  native  simplicity  and  grace  by  whicli  it  may  be 
favorably  compared  with  the  principal  beauty  of  perfect 
poetry  composed  according  to  the  rules  of  art ;  as  may  be 
seen  in  the  villanelles  of  Gascony,  and  in  songs  coming  from 
nations  that  have  no  knowledge  of  any  science,  not  even  of 
writing.  But  mediocre  poetry,  which  is  neither  perfect  nor 
popular,  is  held  in  disdain  by  every  one,  and  receives  neither 
honor  nor  reward."  2 

The  Pleiade,  as  has  already  been  intimated, 
accepted  without  reserve  the  Platonic  doctrine  of 
inspiration.  By  1560  a  considerable  number  of  the 
Platonic  dialogues  had  already  been  translated  into 
French.  Dolet  had  translated  two  of  the  spurious 
dialogues  ;  Duval,  the  Lysis  in  1547 ;  and  Le  Roy, 
the  Phcedo  in  1553  and  the  Symposium  in  1559, 
The  thesis  of  Ramus  in  1536  had  started  an  anti- 
Aristotelian  tendency  in  France,  and  the  literature 
of  the  French  Renaissance  became  impregnated 
with  Platonism.^  It  received  the  royal  favor  of 
Marguerite  de  Navarre,  and  its  influence  became 
fixed  in  1551,  by  the  appointment  of  Ramus  to  a 
professorship  in  the  College  de  France.  Ronsard, 
Vauquelin,  Du  Bartas,  all  give  expression  to  the 
Platonic  theory  of  poetic  inspiration.  The  poet 
must  feel  what  he  writes,  as  Horace  says,  or  his 
reader  will  never  be  moved  by  his  verses ;  and  for 

1  Sidney,  Defence,  p.  29. 

2  Essais,  i.  54. 

*  Cf.  the  Bevue  d'Hist.  litt.  de  la  France,  1896,  ill.  1  sq. 


228  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

the  Pleiade,  the  excitement  of  high  emotions  in  the 
reader  or  hearer  was  the  test  or  touchstone  of 
poetry.^ 

The  national  and  Christian  points  of  view  never 
found  expression  in  France  during  the  sixteenth 
century  in  so  marked  a  manner  as  in  Italy.  There 
are,  indeed,  traces  of  both  a  national  and  a  Christian 
criticism,  but  they  are  hardly  more  than  sporadic. 
Thus,  it  has  been  seen  that  Sibilet,  as  early  as  1548, 
had  clearly  perceived  the  distinguishing  character- 
istic of  the  French  genius.  He  had  noted  that  the 
French  have  only  taken  from  foreign  literature 
what  they  have  deemed  useful  and  of  national 
advantage  ;  and  only  the  other  day  a  distinguished 
French  critic  asserted  in  like  manner  that  the  high 
importance  of  French  literature  consists  in  the  fact 
that  it  has  taken  from  the  other  literatures  of 
Europe  the  things  of  universal  interest  and  disre- 
garded the  accidental  picturesque  details.  Distinct 
traces  of  a  national  point  of  view  may  be  found  in 
the  dramatic  criticism  of  this  period.  Thus  Grevin, 
in  his  Bref  Discours  (1562),  attempts  to  justify  the 
substitution  of  a  crowd  of  Caesar's  soldiers  for  the 
singers  of  the  ancient  chorus,  in  one  of  his  tragedies, 
on  the  following  grounds :  — 

"  If  it  be  alleged  that  this  practice  was  observed  through- 
out antiquity  by  the  Greeks  and  Latins,  I  reply  that  it  is 
permitted  to  us  to  attempt  some  innovation  of  our  own,  es- 
pecially when  there  is  occasion  for  it,  or  when  the  grace  of 
the  poem  is  not  diminished  thereby.  I  know  well  that  it 
will  be  answered  that  the  ancients  employed  the  chorus  of 

1  Ronsard,  ill.  28;  Du  Bellay,  Defense,  ii.  11. 


in.]         ELEMENTS   IN  FRENCH   CRITICISM         229 

singers  to  divert  the  audience,  made  gloomy  perhaps  by  the 
cruelties  represented  in  the  play.  To  this  I  reply  that 
diverse  nations  require  diverse  manners  of  doing  things,  and 
that  among  the  French  there  are  other  means  of  doing  this 
without  interrupting  the  continuity  of  a  story."  i 

The  Christian  point  of  view,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  found  in  Vauquelin  de  la  Fresnaye,  "who  differs 
from  Ronsard  and  Du  Bellay  in  his  preference  for 
scriptural  themes  in  poetry.  The  Pleiade  was  es- 
sentially pagan,  Vauquelin  essentially  Christian. 
The  employment  of  the  pagan  divinities  in  modern 
poetry  seemed  to  him  often  odious,  for  the  times 
had  changed,  and  the  Muses  were  governed  by  dif- 
ferent laws.  The  poet  should  attempt  Christian 
themes;  and  indeed  the  Greeks  themselves,  had 
they  been  Christians,  would  have  sung  the  life  and 
death  of  Christ.  In  this  passage  Vauquelin  is  evi- 
dently following  Minturno,  as  the  latter  was  after- 
ward followed  by  Corneille  :  — 

"  Si  les  Grecs,  comme  vous,  Chrestiens  eussent  escrit, 
Us  eussent  les  hauts  faits  chants  de  lesus  Christ.  .  .  . 
H6  !  quel  plaisir  seroit-ce  k  cette  heure  de  voir 
Nos  poetes  Chrestiens,  les  fa^ons  recevoir 
Du  tragique  ancien  ?    Et  voir  k  nos  misteres 
Les  Payens  assei'vis  sous  les  loix  sulutaires 
De  nos  Saints  et  Martyrs  ?  et  du  vieux  testament 
Voir  une  tragedie  extraite  proprement  ?  "  2 

Vauquelin's  opinion  here  is  out  of  keeping  with 
the  general  theory  of  the  Pleiade,  especially  in 
that  his  suggestions  imply  a  return  to  the  medi- 

1  Arnaud,  app.  ii. 

2  Vauquelin,  Art  Poet.  iii.  845;  c/.  iii.  33;  i.  901. 


230  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

aeval  mystery  and  morality  plays.  The  Uranie 
of  Du  Bartas  is  another  and  more  fervid  expres- 
sion of  this  same  ideal  of  Christian  poetry.  In 
the  Semaines,  Du  Bartas  himself  composed  the 
typical  biblical  poem;  and  tragedies  on  Christian 
or  scriptural  subjects  were  composed  during  the 
French  Renaissance  from  the  time  of  Buchanan 
and  Beza  to  that  of  Garnier  and  Montchrestien. 
But  Vauquelin's  ideal  was  not  that  of  the  later  clas- 
sicism; and  Boileau,  as  has  been  seen,  distinctly 
rejects  Christian  themes  from  modern  poetry. 

Although  the  linguistic  and  prosodic  theories  of 
the  Pleiade  partly  anticipate  both  the  theory  and 
the  practice  of  later  classicism,  the  members  of  the 
school  exhibit  numerous  deviations  from  what  was 
afterward  accepted  as  inviolable  law  in  French 
poetry.  The  most  important  of  these  deviations  con- 
cerns the  use  of  words  from  the  various  French  dia- 
lects, from  foreign  tongues,  and  from  the  technical 
and  mechanical  arts.  A  partial  expression  of  this 
theory  of  poetic  language  has  already  been  seen  in 
Du  Bellay's  Defense  et  Illustration,  in  which  the 
poet  is  urged  to  use  the  more  elegant  technical  dia- 
lectic terms.  Ronsard  gives  very  much  the  same 
advice.  The  best  words  in  all  the  French  dialects 
are  to  be  employed  by  the  poet ;  for  it  is  doubtless  to 
the  number  of  the  dialects  of  Greece  that  we  may 
ascribe  the  supreme  beauty  of  its  la:iguage  and 
literature.  The  poet  is  not  to  affect  too  much  the 
language  of  the  court,  since  it  is  often  very  bad,  being 
the  language  of  ladies  and  of  young  gentlemen  who 
make  a  profession  of  fighting  well  rather  than  of 


III.]  ELEMENTS  IN  FRENCH   CRITICISM         231 

speaking  well.^  Unlike  Malherbe  and  his  school, 
Eonsard  allows  a  certain  amount  of  poetic  license, 
but  only  rarely  and  judiciously.  It  is  to  poetic 
license,  he  says,  that  we  owe  nearly  all  the  beau- 
tiful figures  with  which  poets,  in  their  divine  rapture, 
enfranchising  the  laws  of  grammar,  have  enriched 
their  works.  "This  is  that  birthright,"  said  Dry- 
den,  a  century  later,  in  the  preface  of  his  State  of 
Innocence  and  the  Fall  of  Man,  ^'  which  is  derived 
to  us  from  our  great  forefathers,  even  from  Homer 
down  to  Ben;  and  they  who  would  deny  it  to  us 
have,  in  plain  terms,  the  fox's  quarrel  to  the  grapes 
—  they  cannot  reach  it."  Vauquelin  de  la  Fres- 
naye  follows  E-onsard  and  Du  Bellay  in  urging  the 
use  of  new  and  dialect  words,  the  employment  of 
terms  and  comparisons  from  the  mechanic  arts, 
and  the  various  other  doctrines  by  which  the 
Pleiade  is  distinguished  from  the  school  of  Mal- 
herbe. How  these  useless  linguistic  innovations 
were  checked  and  banished  from  the  French  lan- 
guage forever  will  be  briefly  alluded  to  in  the 
next  chapter. 

1  Bonsard^  vii.  322. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE     FORMATION    OF    THE    CLASSIC    IDEAL    IN    THE 
SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY 

I.    The  Romantic  Revolt 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  between  1600  and 
1630  there  was  a  break  in  the  national  evolution 
of  French  literature.  This  was  especially  so  in 
the  drama,  and  in  France  the  drama  is  the  con- 
necting link  between  century  and  century.  The 
dramatic  works  of  the  sixteenth  century  had  been 
fashioned  after  the  regular  models  borrowed  by 
the  Italians  from  Seneca.  The  change  that  came 
was  a  change  from  Italian  classical  to  Spanish 
romantic  models.  The  note  of  revolt  was  begin- 
ning to  be  heard  in  Grevin,  De  Laudun,  and  others. 
The  seventeenth  century  opened  with  the  production 
of  Hardy's  irregular  drama,  Les  Amours  de  TJiea- 
g^ne  et  CaricUe  (1601),  and  the  influence  of  the 
Spanish  romantic  drama  and  the  Italian  pastoral, 
dominant  for  over  a  quarter  of  a  century,  was  in- 
augurated in  France. 

The  logic  of  this  innovation  was  best  expounded 
in  Spain,  and  it  was  there  that  arguments  in  favor 
of  the  romantic  and  irregular  drama  were  first 
formulated.  The  two  most  interesting  defences  of 
the  Spanish  national  drama  are  doubtless  the 
232 


CHAP.  iv.J  FORMATION  OF  THE  CLASSIC  IDEAL  233 

Egemplar  Poetico  of  Juan  de  la  Cueva  (1606)  and 
Lope  de  Vega's  Arte  Nuevo  de  Hacer  Comedias 
(1609).  Their  inspiration  is  at  bottom  the  same. 
Their  authors  were  both  classicists  at  heart,  or 
rather  classicists  in  theory,  yet  with  differences. 
Juan  de  la  Cueva's  conception  of  poetry  is  entirely 
based  on  the  precepts  of  the  Italians,  except  in 
what  regards  the  national  drama,  for  here  he  is  a 
partisan  and  a  patriot.  He  insists  that  the  differ- 
ence of  time  and  circumstance  frees  the  Spanish 
playwright  from  all  necessity  of  imitating  the 
ancients  or  obeying  their  rules.  "  This  change  in 
the  drama,"  he  says,  "was  effected  by  wise  men, 
who  applied  to  new  conditions  the  new  things  they 
found  most  suitable  and  expedient;  for  we  must 
consider  the  various  opinions,  the  times,  and  the 
manners,  which  make  it  necessary  for  us  to  change 
and  vary  our  operations."^  His  theory  of  the 
drama  was  entirely  opposed  to  his  conception  of  the 
other  forms  of  poetry.  According  to  this  stand- 
point, as  a  recent  writer  has  put  it,  "  the  theatre 
was  to  imitate  nature,  and  to  please ;  poetry  was  to 
imitate  the  Italians,  and  satisfy  the  orthodox  but 
minute  critic."^  Lope  de  Vega,  writing  three 
years  later,  does  not  deny  the  universal  applicabil- 
ity of  the  Aristotelian  canons,  and  even  acknowl- 
edges that  they  are  the  only  true  rules.  But  the 
people  demand  romantic  plays,  and  the  people, 
rather  than  the  poet's  literary  conscience,  must  be 
satisfied  by  the  playwright.     "  I  myself,"  he  says, 

1  Sedano,  Parnaso  Espanol,  viii.  61. 

2  Hannay,  Later  Renaissance,  1898,  p.  39. 


234  LITERARY   CRITICISxM   IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

"write  comedies  according  to  the  art  invented  by 
those  whose  sole  object  it  is  to  obtain  the  applause 
of  the  crowd.  After  all,  since  it  is  the  public  who 
pays  for  these  stupidities,  why  should  we  not  serve 
what  it  wants  ?  "  ^ 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  of  all  the  exposi- 
tions of  the  theory  of  the  Spanish  national  drama 
is  a  defence  of  Lope  de  Vega's  plays  by  one  Alfonso 
Sanchez,  published  in  1618  in  France,  or  possibly 
in  Spain  with  a  false  French  imprint.  The  apology 
of  Sanchez  is  comprehended  in  six  distinct  proposi- 
tions. First,  the  arts  have  their  foundation  in 
nature.  Secondly,  a  wise  and  learned  man  may 
alter  many  things  in  the  existing  arts.  Thirdly, 
nature  does  not  obey  laws,  but  gives  them. 
Fourthly,  Lope  de  Vega  has  done  well  in  creating 
a  new  art.  Fifthly,  in  his  writings  everything  is 
adjusted  to  art,  and  that  a  real  and  living  art. 
Lastly,  Lope  de  Vega  has  surpassed  all  the  ancient 
poets.^  The  following  passage  may  be  extracted 
from  this  treatise,  if  only  to  show  how  little  there 
was  of  novelty  in  the  tenets  of  the  French  roman- 
ticists two  centuries  later :  — 

•'Is  it  said  that  we  have  no  infallible  art  by  which  to 
adjust  our  precepts  ?  But  who  can  doubt  it  ?  We  have  art, 
we  have  precepts  and  rules  which  bind  us,  and  the  principal 
precept  is  to  imitate  nature,  for  the  works  of  poets  express 
the  nature,  the  manners,  and  the  genius  of  the  age  in  which 
they  write.  .  .  .  Lope  de  Vega  writes  in  conformity  with 
art,  because  he  follows  nature.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the 
Spanish  drama  adjusted  itself  to  the  rules  and  laws  of  the 

1  Mene'ndez  y  Pelayo,  iii.  434.  2  Jbid.  iii.  447  sq. 


IV.]      FORMATION   OF   THE   CLASSIC   IDEAL      235 

ancients,  it  would  proceed  against  the  requirements  of 
nature,  and  against  the  foundations  of  poetry.  .  .  ,  The 
great  Lope  has  done  things  over  and  above  the  laws  of  the 
ancients,  but  never  against  these  laws." 

Another  Spanish  writer  defines  art  as  "  an  attentive 
observation  of  examples  graded  by  experience,  and 
reduced  to  method  and  the  majesty  of  laws."  ^ 

It  was  this  naturalistic  conception  of  the  poetic 
art,  and  especially  of  the  drama,  that  obtained  in 
France  during  the  first  thirty  years  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  The  French  playwrights  imitated 
the  Spanish  drama  in  practice,  and  from  the  Span- 
ish theorists  seemed  to  have  derived  the  critical  justi- 
fication of  their  plays.  Hardy  himself,  like  Lope  de 
Vega,  argues  that  "  everything  which  is  approved  by 
usage  and  the  public  taste  is  legitimate  and  more 
than  legitimate. "  Another  writer  of  this  time,  Fran- 
cois Ogier,  in  the  preface  of  the  second  edition  of 
Jean  de  Schelandre's  remarkable  drama  of  Tyr  et 
Sidon  (1628),  argues  for  intellectual  independence  of 
the  ancients  much  in  the  same  way  as  Giraldi  Cintio, 
Pigna,  and  the  other  partisans  of  the  romanzi  had 
done  three-quarters  of  a  century  before.  The  taste 
of  every  nation,  he  says,  is  quite  different  from  any 
other.  "  The  Greeks  wrote  for  the  Greeks,  and  in 
the  judgment  of  the  best  men  of  their  time  they 
succeeded.  But  we  should  imitate  them  very  much 
better  by  giving  heed  to  the  tastes  of  our  own 
country,  and  the  genius  of  our  own  language,  than 
by  forcing  ourselves  to  follow  step  by  step  both 
their  intention  and  their  expression."  This  would 
1  Menendez  y  Pelayo,  ill.  464. 


236  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN  FRANCE     [chap, 

seem  to  be  at  bottom  Goethe's  famous  statement 
that  we  can  best  imitate  the  Greeks  by  trying  to 
be  as  great  men  as  they  were.  It  is  interesting  to 
note,  in  all  of  these  early  critics,  traces  of  that  his- 
torical criticism  which  is  usually  regarded  as  the 
discovery  of  our  own  century.  But  after  all,  the 
French  like  the  Spanish  playwrights  were  merely 
beginning  to  practise  what  the  Italian  dramatists 
in  their  prefaces,  and  some  of  the  Italian  critics 
in  their  treatises,  had  been  preaching  for  nearly  a 
century. 

The  Abbe  d'Aubignac  speaks  of  Hardy  as 
"arresting  the  progress  of  the  French  theatre"; 
and  whatever  practical  improvements  the  French 
theatre  owes  to  him,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
for  a  certain  number  of  years  the  evolution  of  the 
classical  drama  was  partly  arrested  by  his  efforts 
and  the  efforts  of  his  school.  But  during  this 
very  period  the  foundations  of  the  great  literature 
that  was  to  come  were  being  built  on  classical 
lines;  and  the  continuance  of  the  classical  tradi- 
tion after  1630  was  due  to  three  distinct  causes, 
each  of  which  will  be  discussed  by  itself  as  briefly 
as  possible.  These  three  causes  were  the  reaction 
against  the  Pleiade,  the  second  influx  of  the  critical 
ideas  of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  and  the  influence 
of  the  rationalistic  philosophy  of  the  period. 

II.    Tlie  Reaction  against  the  PUiade 

The  reaction  against  the  Pleiade  was  effected,  or 
at  least  begun,  by  Malherbe.     Malherbe's  power  or 


IV.]      F0R5LA.TI0N  OF  THE   CLASSIC   IDEAL      237 

message  as  a  poet  is  of  no  concern  here ;  in  Ms  role  of 
grammarian  and  critic  he  accomplished  certain  im- 
portant and  widespread  reforms  in  French  poetry. 
These  reforms  were  connected  chiefly,  if  not  en- 
tirely, with  the  external  or  formal  side  of  poetry. 
His  work  was  that  of  a  grammarian,  of  a  prosodist 
—  in  a  word,  that  of  a  purist.  He  did  not,  indeed, 
during  his  lifetime,  publish  any  critical  work,  or 
formulate  any  critical  system.  But  the  reforms  he 
executed  were  on  this  account  no  less  influential  or 
enduring.  His  critical  attitude  is  to  be  looked  for 
in  the  memoirs  of  his  life  written  by  his  disciple 
Racan,  and  in  his  own  Commentaire  sur  Desportes, 
which  was  not  published  in  its  entirety  until  very 
recently.^  This  commentary  consists  of  a  series  of 
manuscript  notes  written  by  Malherbe  about  the 
year  1606  in  the  margins  of  a  copy  of  Desportes. 
These  notes  are  of  a  most  fragmentary  kind ;  they 
seldom  go  beyond  a  word  or  two  of  disapproval, 
such  as  faible,  mal  congu,  superflu,  sans  jugement, 
sottise,  or  mal  imagine  ;  and  yet,  together  with  a 
few  detached  utterances  recorded  in  his  letters  and 
in  the  memoirs  by  Racan,  they  indicate  quite  clearly 
the  critical  attitude  of  Malherbe  and  the  reforms 
he  was  bent  on  bringing  about. 

These  reforms  were,  in  the  first  place,  largely 
linguistic.  The  Pleiade  had  attempted  to  widen 
the  sphere   of  poetic  expression  in  French  litera- 

1  The  Commentaire  is  printed  entire  in  Lalanne's  edition  of 
Malherbe,  Paris,  1862,  vol.  iv.  The  critical  doctrine  of  Mal- 
herbe has  been  formulated  by  Bronot,  Doctrine  de  Malherbe, 
pp.  105-236. 


238  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

ture  by  the  introduction  of  words  from  the  classics, 
from  the  Italian  and  even  the  Spanish,  from  the 
provincial  dialects,  from  the  old  romances,  and  from 
the  terminology  of  the  mechanic  arts.  All  these 
archaisms,  neologisms,  Latinisms,  compound  words, 
and  dialectic  and  technical  expressions,  Malherbe 
set  about  to  eradicate  from  the  French  language. 
His  object  was  to  purify  French,  and,  as  it  were,  to 
centralize  it.  The  test  he  set  up  was  actual  usage, 
and  even  this  was  narrowed  down  to  the  usage  of 
the  court.  Ronsard  had  censured  the  exclusive  use 
of  courtly  speech  in  poetry,  on  the  ground  that  the 
courtier  cares  more  about  fighting  well  than  about 
speaking  or  writing  well.  But  Malherbe's  ideal 
was  the  ideal  of  French  classicism  —  the  ideal  of 
Boileau,  Racine,  and  Bossuet.  French  was  to  be 
no  longer  a  hodgepodge  or  a  patois,  but  the  pure 
and  perfect  speech  of  the  king  and  his  court. 
Malherbe,  while  thus  reacting  against  the  Pleiade, 
made  no  pretensions  of  returning  to  the  linguistic 
usages  of  Marot;  his  test  was  present  usage,  his 
model  the  living  language.^  At  the  same  time  his 
reforms  in  language,  as  in  other  things,  represent  a 
reaction  against  foreign  innovations  and  a  return 
to  the  pure  French  idiom.  They  were  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  national  traditions;  and  it  is  this 
national  element  which  is  his  share  in  the  body 
of  neo-classical  theory  and  practice.  His  reforms 
were  all  in  the  direction  of  that  verbal  and  me- 
chanical perfection,  the  love  of  which  is  innate  in 
the  French  nature,  and  which  forms  the  indigenous 
1  Cf,  Horace,  Ars  Poet.  71,  72. 


IV.]      FOR>LA.TION   OF   THE   CLASSIC   IDEAL      239 

or  racial  element  in  French  classicism.  He  elimi- 
nated from  French  verse  hiatus,  enjambement,  in- 
versions, false  and  imperfect  rhymes,  and  licenses 
or  cacophonies  of  all  kinds.  He  gave  it,  as  has 
been  said,  mechanical  perfection, — 

"  Et  r6duisit  la  Muse  aux  regies  du  devoir." 

For  such  a  man  —  tyran  des  mots  et  des  syllabes, 
as  Balzac  called  him  —  the  higher  qualities  of  poetry- 
could  have  little  or  no  meaning.  His  ideals  were 
propriety,  clearness,  regularity,  and  force.  These, 
as  Ghapelain  perceived  at  the  time,  are  oratorical 
rather  than  purely  poetic  qualities ;  yet  for  these, 
all  the  true  qualities  that  go  to  make  up  a  great 
poet  were  to  be  sacrificed.  Of  imagination  and 
poetic  sensibility  he  takes  no  account  whatsoever. 
After  the  verbal  j)erf ection  of  the  verse,  the  logical 
unity  of  the  poem  was  his  chief  interest.  Logic 
and  reason  are  without  doubt  important  things,  but 
they  cannot  exist  in  poetry  to  the  exclusion  of 
imagination.  By  eliminating  inspiration,  as  it 
were,  Malherbe  excluded  the  possibility  of  lyrical 
production  in  France  throughout  the  period  of 
classicism.  He  hated  poetic  fictions,  since  for  him, 
as  for  Boileau,  only  actual  reality  is  beautiful.  If  he 
permitted  the  employment  of  mythological  figures, 
it  was  because  they  are  reasonable  and  universally 
intelligible  symbols.  The  French  mind  is  essen- 
tially rational  and  logical,  and  Malherbe  reintro- 
duced this  native  rationality  into  French  poetry. 
He  set  up  common  sense  as  a  poetic  ideal,  and 
made  poetry  intelligible  to  the  average  mind.     The 


240  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

Pleiade  had  written  for  a  learned  literary  coterie  ; 
Malherbe  wrote  for  learned  and  unlearned  alike. 
For  the  Pleiade,  poetry  had  been  a  divine  office,  a 
matter  of  prophetic  inspiration ;  for  Mallierbe,  it 
was  a  trade,  a  craft,  to  be  learnt  like  any  other. 
Du  Bellay  had  said  that  "  it  is  a  well-accepted  fact, 
according  to  the  most  learned  men,  that  natural 
talents  without  learning  can  accomplish  more  in 
poetry  than  learning  without  natural  talents." 
Malherbe,  it  has  been  neatly  said,  would  have 
upheld  the  contrary  doctrine  that  "  learning  with- 
out natural  talents  can  accomplish  more  than 
natural  talents  without  learning."  ^  After  all, 
eloquence  was  Malherbe's  ideal ;  and  as  the  French 
are  by  nature  an  eloquent  rather  than  a  poetic  peo- 
ple, he  deserves  the  honor  of  having  first  shown 
them  how  to  regain  their  true  inheritance.  In  a 
word,  he  accomplished  for  classical  poetry  in  France 
all  that  the  national  instinct,  the  es2)rit  gaulois, 
could  accomplish  by  itself.  Consistent  structural 
laws  for  the  larger  poetic  forms  he  could  not  give  ; 
these  France  owes  to  Italy.  Nor  could  he  appre- 
ciate the  high  notion  of  abstract  perfection,  or  the 
classical  conception  of  an  absolute  standard  of 
taste  —  that  of  several  expressions  or  several  ways 
of  doing  something,  one  way  and  only  one  is  the 
right  one  ;  this  France  owes  to  rationalistic  philos- 
ophy. Malherbe  seems  almost  to  be  echoing  Mon- 
taigne when  he  says  in  a  letter  to  Balzac  :  — 

"Do  you  not  know  that  the  diversity  of  opinions  is  as 
natural  as  the  difference  of  men's  faces,  and  that  to  wish 
I  Brunot,  p.  140. 


IV.]       FORIVIATION   OF   THE   CLASSIC   IDEAL       241 

that  what  pleases  or  displeases  us  should  please  or  displease 
everybody  is  to  pass  the  limits  where  it  seems  that  God  in 
His  omnipotence  has  commanded  us  to  stop  ?  "  ^ 

With  this  individualistic  expression  of  the  questions 
of  opinion  and  taste,  we  have  but  to  compare  the 
following  passage  from  La  Bruyere  to  indicate  how 
far  Malherbe  is  still  from  the  classic  ideal :  — 

"  There  is  a  point  of  perfection  in  art,  as  of  excellence  or 
maturity  in  nature.  He  who  is  sensible  of  it  and  loves  it  has 
perfect  taste  ;  he  who  is  not  sensible  of  it  and  loves  this  or 
that  else  on  either  side  of  it  has  a  faulty  taste.  There  is 
then  a  good  and  a  bad  taste,  and  men  dispute  of  tastes  not 
without  reason."  ^ 


III.    The  Second  Ttiflux  of  Italian  Ideas 

The  second  influx  of  Italian  critical  ideas  into 
France  came  through  two  channels.  In  the  first 
place,  the  direct  literary  relations  between  Italy 
and  France  during  this  period  were  very  marked. 
The  influence  of  Marino,  who  lived  for  a  long  time 
at  Paris  and  published  a  number  of  his  works 
there,  was  not  inconsiderable,  especially  upon  the 
French  concettists  and  precieux.  Two  Italian 
ladies  founded  and  presided  over  the  famous  Hotel 
de  Kambouillet,  —  Julie  Savelli,  Marquise  de  Pisani, 
and  Catherine  de  Vivonne,  Marquise  de  Eambouillet. 
It  was  partly  to  the  influence  of  the  Accademia 
della  Crusca  that  the  foundation  of  the  French 
Academy  was  due.     Chapelain  and  Menage  were 

1  (Euvres,  Lalanne's  edition,  iv.  91. 

*  Caracteres,  "  Des  Ouvrages  de  TEsprit." 


242  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

both  members  of  the  Italian  society,  and  submitted 
to  it  their  different  oj)inions  on  a  verse  of  Petrarch. 
Like  the  Accademia  della  Crusca,  the  French  Acad- 
emy purposed  the  preparation  of  a  great  dictionary ; 
and  each  began  its  existence  by  attacking  a  great 
work  of  literature,  the  Gerusalemme  Liberata  in 
the  case  of  the  Italian  society,  Corneille's  Cid  in 
the  case  of  the  French.  The  regency  of  Marie  de 
Medici,  the  supremacy  of  Mazarin,  and  other  politi- 
cal events,  all  conspired  to  bring  Italy  and  France 
into  the  closest  social  and  literary  relationship. 

But  the  two  individuals  who  first  brought  into 
French  literature  and  naturalized  the  primal  criti- 
cal concepts  of  Italy  were  Chapelain  and  Balzac. 
Chapelain's  private  correspondence  indicates  how 
thorough  was  his  acquaintance  with  the  critical 
literature  of  Italy.  "  I  have  a  particular  affection 
for  the  Italian  language,"  he  wrote  in  1639  to  Bal- 
zac.^ Of  the  Cid,  he  says  that  "  in  Italy  it  would 
be  considered  barbarous,  and  there  is  not  an  acad- 
emy which  would  not  banish  it  beyond  the  confines 
of  its  jurisdiction."  ^  Speaking  of  the  greatness  of 
Ronsard,  he  says  that  his  own  opinion  was  in 
accord  with  that  of  "  two  great  savants  beyond  the 
Alps,  Speroni  and  Castelvetro  " ;  ^  and  he  had  con- 
siderable correspondence  with  Balzac  on  the  subject 
of  the  controversy  between  Caro  and  Castelvetro  in 
the   previous   century.     In  a  word,  he  knew  and 

1  Lettres,  i.  413.  The  references  are  to  the  edition  by  Tami- 
zey  de  Larroque,  Paris,  1880-1883. 

2  Ibid.  i.  156. 

8  Ibid.  i.  631  sq. 


IV.]      rOESL^TION  OF  THE   CLASSIC  IDEAL      243 

studied  tlie  critics  and  scholars  of  Italy,  and  was 
interested  in  discussing  them.  Balzac's  interest, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  rather  toward  Spanish 
literature ;  but  he  was  the  agent  of  the  Cardinal  de 
la  Valette  at  Rome,  and  it  was  on  his  return  to 
France  that  he  published  the  first  collection  of  his 
letters.  The  influence  of  both  Chapelain  and  Bal- 
zac on  French  classicism  was  considerable.  During 
the  sixteenth  century,  literary  criticism  had  been 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  learned  men.  Chapelain 
and  Balzac  vulgarized  the  critical  ideas  of  the 
Italian  Renaissance,  and  made  them  popular,  hu- 
man, but  inviolable.  Balzac  introduced  into  France 
the  fine  critical  sense  of  the  Italians ;  Chapelain 
introduced  their  formal  rules,  and  imposed  the 
three  unities  on  French  tragedy.  Together  they 
effected  a  humanizing  of  the  classical  ideal,  even 
while  subjecting  it  to  rules. 

It  was  to  the  same  Italian  influences  that  France 
owed  the  large  number  of  artificial  epics  that  ap- 
peared during  this  period.  About  ten  epics  were 
published  in  the  fifteen  years  between  1650  and 
1665.^  The  Italians  of  the  sixteenth  century  had 
formulated  a  fixed  theory  of  the  artificial  epic ;  and 
the  nations  of  western  Europe  rivalled  one  another 
in  attempting  to  make  practical  use  of  this  theory. 
It  is  to  this  that  the  large  number  of  Spanish  epics 
in  the  sixteenth  century  and  of  French  epics  in  the 
seventeenth  may  be  ascribed.     Among  the  latter 

1  These  epics  have  been  treated  at  length  by  Duchesne, 
Histoire  des  Poemes  Epiques  franf;aia  du  XVII  Siede,  Paris, 
1870. 


244         LITERAKY  CRITICISM  IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

we  may  mention  Seudery's  Alaric,  Lemoyne's  Saint 
Louis,  Saint-Amant's  Moyse  Sauve,  and  Chapelain's 
own  epic,  La  Pucelle,  awaited  by  tlie  public  for 
many  years,  and  published  only  to  be  damned  for- 
ever by  Boileau. 

The  prefaces  of  all  these  epics  indicate  clearly 
enough  their  indebtedness  to  the  Italians.  They 
were  indeed  scarcely  more  than  attempts  to  put  the 
rules  and  precepts  of  the  Italian  Kenaissance  into 
practice.  "I  then  consulted  the  masters  of  this 
art,"  says  Scudery,  in  the  preface  of  Alaric,  "that 
is  to  say,  Aristotle  and  Horace,  and  after  them 
Macrobius,  Scaliger,  Tasso,  Castelvetro,  Piccolom- 
ini,  Vida,  Vossius,  Robortelli,  Riccoboni,  Paolo 
Beni,  Mambrun,  and  several  others ;  and  passing 
from  theory  to  practice  I  reread  very  carefully  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  the  u^neid,  the  Pharsalia, 
the  Thehaid,  the  Orlando  Furioso,  and  the  Gerusa- 
lemme  Liberata,  and  many  other  epic  poems  in 
diverse  languages."  Similarly,  Saint-Amant,  in 
the  preface  of  his  Moyse  Sauve,  says  that  he  had 
rigorously  observed  "the  unities  of  action  and 
place,  which  are  the  principal  requirements  of  the 
epic ;  and  besides,  by  an  entirely  new  method,  I 
have  restricted  my  subject  not  only  within  twenty- 
four  hours,  the  limit  of  the  dramatic  poem,  but 
almost  within  half  of  that  time.  This  is  more  than 
even  Aristotle,  Horace,  Scaliger,  Castelvetro,  Pic- 
colomini,  and  all  the  other  moderns  have  ever 
required."  It  is  obvious  that  for  these  epic-makers 
the  rules  and  precepts  of  the  Italians  were  the  final 
tests  of  heroic  poetry.     Similarly,  the  Abb^  d'Au- 


IV.]      FORMATION  OF  THE   CLASSIC   IDEAL      245 

bignac,  at  the  beginning  of  his  Pratique  du  Thedtre, 
advises  the  dramatic  poet  to  study,  among  other 
writers,  "Aristotle,  Horace,  Castelvetro,  Vida, 
Heinsius,  Vossius,  and  Scaliger,  of  whom  not  a 
word  should  be  lost."  From  the  Italians  also  came 
the  theory  of  poetry  in  general  as  held  throughout 
the  period  of  classicism,  and  expounded  by  the 
Abbe  d'Aubignac,  La  Mesnardiere,  Corneille,  Boi- 
leau,  and  numerous  others ;  and  it  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  repeat  that  Rapin,  tracing  the  history  of 
criticism  at  the  beginning  of  his  Rejlexions  siir  la 
Poetique,  deals  with  scarcely  any  critics  but  the 
Italians. 

Besides  the  direct  influence  of  the  Italian  critics, 
another  influence  contributed  its  share  to  the  sum 
of  critical  ideas  which  French  classicism  owes  to 
the  Italian  Renaissance.  This  was  the  tradition  of 
Scaliger,  carried  on  by  the  Dutch  scholars  Heinsius 
and  Vossius.  Daniel  Heinsius  was  the  pupil  of 
Joseph  Scaliger,  the  illustrious  son  of  the  author  of 
the  Poetics ;  and  through  Heinsius  the  dramatic 
theories  of  the  elder  Scaliger  influenced  classical 
tragedy  in  France.  The  treatise  of  Heinsius,  De 
Tragoedice  Constitutione,  published  at  Leyden  in 
1611,  was  called  by  Chapelain  "  the  quintessence  of 
Aristotle's  Poetics "  ;  and  Chapelain  called  Hein- 
sius himself  "  a  prophet  or  sibyl  in  matters  of  criti- 
cism." ^  Annoted  by  Racine,  cited  as  an  infallible 
authority  by  Corneille,  Heinsius's  work  exercised 

^  Lettres,  i.  269,  424.  On  the  theories  of  Heinsius,  see  Zerbst, 
Ilin  Vorldufer  Lessings  in  der  Aristotelesinterpretation,  Jena, 
1887. 


246  LITERARY  CRITICISM   IN  FRANCE     [chap. 

a  marked  influence  on  French  tragedy  by  fixing 
upon  it  the  laws  of  Scaliger ;  and  later  the  works 
of  Vossius  cooperated  with  those  of  Heinsius  in 
widening  the  sphere  of  the  Italian  influence.  It  is 
evident,  therefore,  that  while  French  literature  had 
already  during  the  sixteenth  century  taken  from  the 
Italian  Eenaissance  its  respect  for  antiquity  and  its 
admiration  for  classical  mythology,  the  seventeenth 
century  owed  to  Italy  its  definitive  conception  of  the 
theory  of  poetry,  and  especially  certain  rigid  struc- 
tural laws  for  tragedy  and  epic.  It  may  be  said 
without  exaggeration  that  there  is  not  an  essential 
idea  or  precept  in  the  works  of  Corneille  and 
D'Aubignac  on  dramatic  poetry,  or  of  Le  Bossu  and 
Mambrun  on  epic  poetry,  that  cannot  be  found  in 
the  critical  writings  of  the  Italian  Renaissance. 

IV.    The  Influence,  of  Rationalistic  Philosophy 

The  influence  of  rationalistic  philosophy  on  the 
general  attitude  of  classicism  manifested  itself  in 
what  may  be  called  the  gradual  rationalization  of  all 
that  the  Renaissance  gave  to  France.  The  process 
thus  effected  is  most  definitely  exhibited  in  the  evo- 
lution of  the  rules  which  France  owed  to  Italy.  It 
has  already  been  shown  how  the  rules  and  precepts 
of  the  Italians  had  originally  been  based  on  author- 
ity alone,  but  had  gradually  obtained  a  general  sig- 
nificance of  their  own,  regardless  of  their  ancient 
authority.  Somewhat  later,  in  England,  the  Aristo- 
telian canons  were  defended  by  Ben  Jonson  on  the 
ground  that  Aristotle    understood    the    causes   of 


IV.]      FORMATION   OF   THE   CLASSIC   IDEAL       247 

things,  and  that  what  others  had  done  by  chance 
or  custom,  Aristotle  did  by  reason  alone.^  By  this 
time,  then,  the  reasonableness  of  the  Aristotelian 
canons  was  distinctly  felt,  although  they  were  still 
regarded  as  having  authoritativeness  in  themselves ; 
and  it  was  first  in  the  French  classicists  of  the 
seventeenth  century  that  reason  and  the  ancient 
rules  were  regarded  as  one  and  inseparable. 

Rationalism,  indeed,  is  to  be  found  at  the  very  out- 
set of  the  critical  activity  of  the  Renaissance  ;  and 
Vida's  words,  already  cited,  *'  Semper  nutu  rationis 
eant  res,"  represent  in  part  the  attitude  of  the  Re- 
naissance mind  toward  literature.  But  the  "  rea- 
son "  of  the  earlier  theorists  was  merely  empirical 
and  individualistic;  it  did  not  differ  essentially 
from  Horace's  ideal  of  "  good  sense."  In  fact,  ra- 
tionalism and  humanism,  while  existing  together 
throughout  the  Renaissance,  were  never  to  any  ex- 
tent harmonized ;  and  extreme  rationalism  generally 
took  the  form  of  an  avowed  antagonism  to  Aristotle. 
The  complete  rationalization  of  the  laws  of  litera- 
ture is  first  evident  toward  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  "The  rules  of  the  theatre,"  says 
the  Abbe  d'Aubignac,  at  the  beginning  of  his 
Pratique  du  Thedtre,  "  are  founded,  not  on  author- 
ity, but  on  reason,"  and  if  they  are  called  the  rules 
of  the  ancients,  it  is  simply  "  because  the  ancients 
have  admirably  practised  them."  Similarly,  Cor- 
neille,  in  his  discourse  Des  Trois  Unites,  says  that 
the  unity  of  time  would  be  arbitrary  and  tyrannical 
if  it  were  merely  required  by  Aristotle's  Poetics, 
1  Discoveries,  p.  80. 


248  LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   FRANCE     [chap. 

but  that  its  real  prop  is  the  natural  reason ;  and 
Boileau  sums  up  the  final  attitude  of  classicism  in 
these  words :  — 

"  Aimez  done  la  raison;  que  toujours  vos  Merits 
Empruntent  d'eWe  seule  et  leur  lustre  et  leur  prix."  i 

Here  the  rationalizing  process  is  complete,  and  the 
actual  requirements  of  authority  become  identical 
with  the  dictates  of  the  reason. 

The  rules  expounded  by  Boileau,  while  for  the 
most  part  the  same  as  those  enunciated  by  the  Ital- 
ians, are  no  longer  mere  rules.  They  are  laws  dic- 
tated by  abstract  and  universal  reason,  and  hence 
inevitable  and  infallible;  they  are  not  tyrannical 
or  arbitrary,  but  imposed  upon  us  by  the  very  na- 
ture of  the  human  mind.  This  is  not  merely,  as 
we  have  said,  the  good  nature  and  the  good  sense, 
in  a  word,  the  sweet  reasonableness,  of  such  a  critic 
as  Horace.^  There  is  more  than  this  in  the  classi- 
cists of  the  seventeenth  century.  Good  sense  be- 
comes universalized,  becomes,  in  fact,  as  has  been 
said,  not  merely  an  empirical  notion  of  good  sense, 
but  the  abstract  and  universal  reason  itself.  From 
this  follows  the  absolute  standard  of  taste  at  the 
bottom  of  classicism,  as  exemplified  in  the  passage 
already  cited  from  La  Bruyere,  and  in  such  a  line 
as  this  from  Boileau :  — 

"  La  raison  pour  marcher  n'a  souvent  qu'une  voie."  ' 
This  rationalization  of  the  Renaissance   rules  of 

1  Art  Po^t.  i.  37. 

2  Cf.  Brunetiere,  Etudes  Critiques,  iv.  136 ;  and  Krantz,  p.  93 
sq. 

8  Art  Po^t.  i.  48. 


IV.]       FORMATION   OF   THE   CLASSIC   IDEAL      249 

poetry  was  effected  by  contemporary  philosophy; 
if  not  by  the  works  and  doctrines  of  Descartes  him- 
self, at  least  by  the  general  tendency  of  the  human 
mind  at  this  period,  of  which  these  works  and  doc- 
trines are  the  most  perfect  expressions.  Boileau's 
Art  Poetique  has  been  aptly  called  the  Discours  cle 
la  Methode  of  French  poetry.  So  that  while  the 
contribution  of  Malherbe  and  his  school  to  classi- 
cism lay  in  the  insistence  on  clearness,  propriety, 
and  verbal  and  metrical  perfection,  and  the  contri- 
bution of  the  Italian  Renaissance  lay  in  the  infusion 
of  respect  for  classical  antiquity  and  the  imposition 
of  a  certain  body  of  fixed  rules,  the  contribution  of 
contemporary  philosophy  lay  in  the  rationalization 
or  universalization  of  these  rules,  and  in  the  imposi- 
tion of  an  abstract  and  absolute  standard  of  taste. 

But  Cartesianism  brought  with  it  certain  impor- 
tant limitations  and  deficiencies.  Boileau  himself 
is  reported  to  have  said  that  "the  philosophy  of 
Descartes  has  cut  the  throat  of  poetry ; "  *  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  this  is  the  exaggerated  expres- 
sion of  a  certain  inevitable  truth.  The  excessive 
insistence  on  the  reason  brought  with  it  a  corre- 
sponding undervaluation  of  the  imagination.  The 
rational  and  rigidly  scientific  basis  of  Cartesianism 
was  forced  on  classicism ;  and  reality  became  its 
supreme  object  and  its  final  test :  — 

"Rien  n'est  beau  que  le  vrai." 

jieference  has  already  been  made  to  various  dis- 
advantages imposed  on  classicism  by  the  very  nature 

1  Reported  by  J.  B.  Rousseau,  in  a  letter  to  Brossette,  July  21, 
1715. 


250     LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  FRANCE     [chap.  iv. 

of  its  origin  and  growth ;  but  the  most  vital  of  all 
these  disadvantages  was  the  influence  of  the  Car- 
tesian philosophy  or  philosophic  temper.  With 
the  scientific  basis  thus  imposed  on  literature,  its 
only  safeguard  against  extinction  was  the  vast  in- 
fluence of  a  certain  body  of  fixed  rules,  which  lit- 
erature dared  not  deviate  from,  and  which  it 
attempted  to  justify  on  the  wider  grounds  of  phi- 
losophy. These  rules,  then,  the  contribution  of 
Italy,  saved  poetry  in  France  from  extinction  dur- 
ing the  classical  period ;  and  of  this  a  remarkable 
confirmation  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  not  un- 
til the  rationalism  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  was  superseded  in  France,  did  French  lit- 
erature rid  itself  of  this  body  of  Renaissance  rules. 
Cartesianism,  or  at  least  the  rationalistic  spirit, 
humanized  these  rules,  and  imposed  them  on  the 
rest  of  Europe.  But  though  qiuntessentialized, 
they  remained  artificial,  and  circumscribed  the 
workings  of  the  French  imagination  for  over  a 
century. 


Part   Third 
LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ENGLAND 


LITERARY   CRITICISM  IN  ENGLAND 


CHAPTER   I 

THE  EVOLUTION    OF    ENGLISH    CRITICISM   FROM 
ASCHAM    TO    MILTON 

^  Literary  criticism  iu  England  during  the  Eliz- 
abethan age  was  neither  so  influential  nor  so  rich 
and  varied  as  the  contemporary  criticism  of  Italy 
and  France.  This  fact  might  perhaps  be  thought 
insufficient  to  affect  the  interest  or  patriotism  of 
English-speaking  people,  yet  the  most  charming 
critical  monument  of  this  period,  Sidney's  Defence 
of  Poesy,  has  been  slightingly  referred  to  by  the 
latest  historian  of  English  poetry.  Such  interest 
and  importance  as  Elizabethan  criticism  possesses 
must  therefore  be  of  an  historical  nature,  and  lies 
in  two  distinct  directions.  In  the  first  place,  the 
study  of  the  literature  of  this  period  will  show, 
not  only  that  there  was  a  more  or  less  complete 
body  of  critical  doctrine  during  the  Renaissance, 
but  also  that  Englishmen  shared  in  this  creation, 
or  inheritance,  of  the  Renaissance  as  truly  as  did 
their  continental  neighbors ;  and  on  the  other  hand 
this  study  may  be  said  to  possess  an  interest  in  itself, 
in  so  far  as  it  will  make  the  growth  of  classicism  in 
England  intelligible,  and  will  indicate  that  the 
253 


254       LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ENGLAND    [chap. 

formation  of  tlie  classic  ideal  had  begun  before  the 
introduction  of  the  French  influence.  In  neither 
case,  however,  can  early  English  criticism  be  con- 
sidered wholly  apart  from  the  general  body  of 
Renaissance  doctrine ;  and  its  study  loses  in  impor- 
tance and  perspicuity  according  as  it  is  kept  dis- 
tinct from  the  consideration  of  the  critical  literature 
of  France,  and  especially  of  Italy. 

English  criticism,  during  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries,  passed  through  five  more  or  less 
distinct  stages  of  development.  The  first  stage, 
characterized  by  the  purely  rhetorical  study  of 
literature,  may  be  said  to  begin  with  Leonard 
Coxe's  Ai'te  or  Crafte  of  Rhetoryke,  a  hand-book  for 
young  students,  compiled  about  1524,  chiefly  from 
one  of  the  rhetorical  treatises  of  Melanchthon.^  This 
was  followed  by  Wilson's  Arte  of  Rlietorike  (1553), 
which  is  more  extensive  and  certainly  more  origi- 
nal than  Coxe's  manual,  and  which  has  been  called 
by  Warton  "  the  first  book  or  system  of  criticism 
in  our  language."  But  the  most  important  figure 
of  this  period  is  Roger  Ascham.  The  educational 
system  expounded  in  his  ScJiolemaster,  written 
between  1563  and  1568,  he  owed  largely  to  his 
friend,  John  Sturm,  the  Strasburg  humanist,  and 
to  his  teacher,  Sir  John  Cheke,  who  had  been 
Greek  lecturer  at  the  University  of  Padua;  but 
for  the  critical  portions  of  this  work  he  seems 
directly  indebted  to  the  rhetorical  treatises  of  the 
Italians.^   Yet  his  obligations  to  the  Italian  human- 

1  C/.  Mod.  Lang.  Notes,  1898,  xiii.  293. 

2  Vf.  Ascham,  Works,  ii.  174-191. 


I.]  EVOLUTION  OF  ENGLISH  CRITICISM      255 

ists  did  not  prevent  the  expression  of  his  stern  and 
unyielding  antagonism  to  the  romantic  Italian  spirit 
as  it  influenced  the  imaginative  literature  of  his 
time.  In  studying  early  English  literature  it  must 
always  be  kept  in  mind  that  the  Italian  Renais- 
sance influenced  the  Elizabethan  age  in  two  differ- 
ent directions.  The  Italianization  of  English  poetry 
had  been  effected,  or  at  least  begun,  by  the  publi- 
cation of  Tottel's  Miscellany  in  1557 ;  on  this,  the 
creative  side  of  English  literature,  the  Italian 
influence  was  distinctly  romantic.  The  influence 
of  the  Italian  humanists,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
directly  opposed  to  this  romantic  spirit ;  even  in 
their  own  country  they  had  antagonized  all  that 
was  not  classical  in  tendency.  Ascham,  therefore, 
as  a  result  of  his  humanistic  training,  became  not 
only  the  first  English  man  of  letters,  but  also  the 
first  English  classicist. 

The  first  stage  of  English  criticism,  then,  was 
entirely  given  up  to  rhetorical  study.  It  was  at 
this  time  that  English  writers  first  attained  the 
appreciation  of  form  and  style  as  distinguishing 
features  of  literature  ;  and  it  was  to  this  appre- 
ciation that  the  formation  of  an  English  prose 
style  was  due.  This  period  may  therefore  be  com- 
pared with  the  later  stages  of  Italian  humanism  in 
the  fifteenth  century ;  and  the  later  humanists  were 
the  masters  and  models  of  these  early  English 
rhetoricians.  Gabriel  Harvey,  as  a  Ciceronian  of 
the  school  of  Bembo,  was  perhaps  their  last  repre- 
sentative. 

The  second  stage  of  English  criticism  —  a  period 


256      LITERARY   CRITICISM  IN  ENGLAND     [chap. 

of  classification  and  especially  of  metrical  studies  — 
commences  with  Gascoigne's  Notes  of  Instruction 
concerning  the  making  of  Verse,^  published  in  1575, 
and  modelled  apparently  on  Ronsard's  Ahrige  de 
VArt  Poetiqiie  frangois  (1565).  Besides  this  brief 
pamphlet,  the  first  work  on  English  versification, 
this  stage  also  includes  Puttenham's  Aj'te  of  Eng- 
lish Poesie,  the  first  systematic  classification  of 
poetic  forms  and  subjects,  and  of  rhetorical  figures ; 
Bullokar's  Bref  Grammar,  the  first  systematic 
treatise  on  English  grammar ;  and  Harvey's  Letters 
and  Webbe's  Discourse  of  English  Poetrie,  the  first 
systematic  attempts  to  introduce  classical  metres 
into  English  poetry.  This  period  was  charac- 
terized by  the  study  and  classification  of  the 
practical  questions  of  language  and  versification; 
and  in  this  labor  it  was  cooperating  with  the  very 
tendencies  which  Ascham  had  been  attempting  to 
counteract.  The  study  of  the  verse-forms  intro- 
duced into  England  from  Italy  helped  materially 
to  perfect  the  external  side  of  English  poetry ;  and 
a  similar  result  was  obtained  by  the  crude  attempts 
at  quantitative  verse  suggested  by  the  school  of 
Tolomei.  The  Italian  prosodists  were  thus,  directly 
or  indirectly,  the  masters  of  the  English  students 
of  this  era. 

The  representative  work  of  the  third  stage  —  the 
period  of  philosophical  and  apologetic  criticism  —  is 
Sir  Philip  Sidney's  Defence  of  Poesy,  published  post- 
humously in  1595,  though  probably  written  about 

1  The  Rculis  and  Cautelis  of  Scottis  Poexie  by  James  VI.  of 
Scotland  is  wholly  based  on  Gascoigne's  treatise. 


I.]  EVOLUTION  OF   ENGLISH   CRITICISM       257 

1583.  Harington's  Apologie  of  Poetrie,  Daniel's 
Defence  of  Ryme,  and  a  few  others,  are  also  contem- 
porary treatises.  These  works,  as  their  titles  in- 
dicate, are  all  defences  or  apologies,  and  were  called 
forth  by  the  attacks  of  the  Puritans  on  poetry, 
especially  dramatic  poetry,  and  the  attacks  of  the 
classicists  on  English  versification  and  rhyme. 
Reqviired  by  the  exigencies  of  the  moment  to  de- 
fend poetry  in  general,  these  authors  did  not 
attempt  to  do  so  on  local  or  temporary  grounds,  but 
set  out  to  examine  the  fundamental  grounds  of 
criticism,  and  to  formulate  the  basic  principles  of 
poetry.  In  this  attempt  they  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously sought  aid  from  the  critics  of  Italy,  and  thus 
commenced  in  England  the  influence  of  the  Italian 
theory  of  poetry.  How  great  was  their  indebted- 
ness to  the  Italians  the  course  of  the  present  study 
will  make  somewhat  clear ;  but  it  is  certainly  re- 
markable that  this  indebtedness  has  never  been 
pointed  out  before.  Speaking  of  Sidney's  Defence 
of  Poesy,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  English 
authorities  on  the  Renaissance  says :  "  Much  as 
the  Italians  had  recently  written  upon  the  theory 
of  poetry,  I  do  not  remember  any  treatise  which  can 
be  said  to  have  supplied  the  material  or  suggested 
the  method  of  this  apology."  ^  On  the  contrary, 
the  doctrines  discussed  by  Sidney  had  been  receiv- 
ing very  similar  treatment  from  the  Italians  for 
over  half  a  century  ;  and  it  can  be  said  without  ex- 
aggeration that  there  is  not  an  essential  principle  in 

1  J.  A.  Symonds,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  p.  157.    Cf.  also,  Sidney, 
Pefence,  Cook's  iutroductiou,  p.  xxvii. 

s 


258       LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN  ENGLAND     [chap. 

the  Defence  of  Poesy  which  cannot  be  traced  back 
to  some  Italian  treatise  on  the  poetic  art.  The  age 
of  which  Sidney  is  the  chief  representative  is  there- 
fore the  first  period  of  the  influence  of  Italian  critics. 
The  fourth  stage  of  English  criticism,  of  which 
Ben  Jonson  is,  as  it  were,  the  presiding  genius, 
occupies  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
The  period  that  preceded  it  was  in  general  romantic 
in  its  tendencies ;  that  of  Jonson  leaned  toward  a 
strict  though  never  servile  classicism.  Sidney's 
contemporaries  had  studied  the  general  theory  of 
poetry,  not  for  the  purpose  of  enunciating  rules  or 
dogmas  of  criticism,  but  chiefly  in  order  to  defend 
the  poetic  art,  and  to  understand  its  fundamental 
principles.  The  spirit  of  the  age  was  the  spirit,  let 
us  say,  of  Fracastoro;  that  of  Jonson  was,  in  a 
moderate  form,  the  spirit  of  Scaliger  or  Castelvetro. 
With  Jonson  the  study  of  the  art  of  poetry  became 
an  inseparable  guide  to  creation;  and  it  is  this 
element  of  self-conscious  art,  guided  by  the  rules 
of  criticism,  which  distinguishes  him  from  his 
predecessors.  The  age  which  he  represents  is 
therefore  the  second  period  of  the  influence  of 
Italian  criticism ;  and  the  same  influence  also  is  to 
be  seen  in  such  critical  poems  as  Suckling's  Session 
of  the  Poets,  and  the  Oreat  Assises  holden  in  Par- 
nassus, ascribed  to  Wither,  both  of  which  may  be 
traced  back  to  the  class  of  critical  poetry  of  which 
Boccalini's  Ragguagli  di  Parnaso  is  the  type.^ 

1  Cy.  Foffauo,  p.  173  sq.  In  Spain,  Lope  de  Vega's  Laurel  de 
Apolo  and  Cervantes'  Viage  del  Parnaso  belong  to  the  same 
class  of  poems. 


I.]  EVOLUTION  OF   ENGLISH   CRITICISM       259 

The  fifth  period,  which  covers  the  second  half 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  is  characterized  by 
the  introduction  of  French  influence,  and  begins 
with  Davenant's  letter  to  Hobbes,  and  Hobbes's 
answer,  both  prefixed  to  the  epic  of  Gondibert 
(1651).  These  letters,  written  while  Davenant 
and  Hobbes  were  at  Paris,  display  man}^  of  the 
characteristic  features  of  the  new  influence,  —  the 
rationalistic  spirit,  the  stringent  classicism,  the  re- 
striction of  art  to  the  imitation  of  nature,  with  the 
further  limitation  of  nature  to  the  life  of  the  city 
and  the  court,  and  the  confinement  of  the  imagi- 
nation to  what  is  called  "wit."  This  specialized 
sense  of  the  word  "wit"  is  characteristic  of  the 
new  age,  of  which  Dryden,  in  part  the  disciple  of 
Davenant,  is  the  leading  figure.  The  Elizabethans 
used  the  term  in  the  general  sense  of  the  under- 
standing, —  wit,  the  mental  faculty,  as  opposed  to 
will,  the  faculty  of  volition.  With  the  neo-classi- 
cists  it  was  used  sometimes  to  represent,  in  a  lim- 
ited sense,  the  imagination,^  more  often,  however, 
to  designate  what  we  should  call  fancy,^  or  even 
mere  propriety  of  poetic  expression ;  ^  but  what- 
ever its  particular  use,  it  was  always  regarded  as 
of  the  essence  of  poetic  art. 

With  the  fifth  stage  of  English  criticism  this 
essay  is  not  concerned.  The  history  of  literary 
criticism  in  England  will  be  traced  no  farther  than 
1650,  when  the  influence  of  France  was  substituted 

1  Of.  Dryden,  ded.  epist.  to  the  Annus  Mirahilia. 

2  Addison,  Spectator,  no.  62. 

*  Dryden,  preface  to  the  State  of  Innocence. 


2G0     LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ENGLAND     [chap.  i. 

for  that  of  Italy.  This  section  deals  especially 
with  the  two  great  periods  of  Italian  influence, — 
that  of  Sidney  and  that  of  Ben  Jonson.  These 
two  men  are  the  central  figures,  and  their  names, 
like  those  of  Dryden,  Pope,  and  Samuel  Johnson, 
represent  distinct  and  important  epochs  in  the 
history  of  literary  criticism. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  GENERAL  THEORY  OF  POETRY  IN  THE 
ELIZABETHAN  AGE 

Those  who  have  some  acquaintance,  however 
superficial,  with  the  literary  criticism  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance  will  find  an  account  of  the  Elizabethan 
theory  of  poetry  a  twice-told  tale.  In  England,  as 
in  France,  criticism  during  this  period  was  of  a 
more  practical  character  than  in  Italy;  but  even 
for  the  technical  questions  discussed  by  the  Eliza- 
bethans, some  prototype,  or  at  least  some  equiva- 
lent, may  be  found  among  the  Italians.  The  first 
four  stages  of  English  criticism  have  therefore  little 
novelty  or  original  value ;  and  their  study  is  chiefly 
important  as  evidence  of  the  gradual  application  of 
the  ideas  of  the  Renaissance  to  English  literature. 

The  writers  of  the  first  stage,  as  might  be  ex- 
pected, concerned  themselves  but  little  with  the 
theory  of  poetry,  beyond  repeating  here  and  there 
the  commonplaces  they  found  in  the  Italian  vheto- 
ricians.  Yet  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  as  early 
as  1553,  Wilson,  in  the  third  book  of  his  Rhetoric, 
gives  expression  to  the  allegorical  conception  of 
poetry  which  in  Italy  had  held  sway  from  the  time 
of  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio,  and  which,  more  than 
anything  else,  colored  critical  theory  in  Elizabethan 
261 


262      LITERARY  CRITICISM    IN  ENGLAND     [chap. 

England.  The  ancient  poets,  according  to  Wilson, 
did  not  spend  their  time  inventing  meaningless 
fables,  but  used  the  story  merely  as  a  framework 
for  contents  of  ethical,  philosophic,  scientific,  or 
historical  import;  the  trials  of  Ulysses,  for  ex- 
ample, were  intended  to  furnish  a  lively  picture 
of  man's  misery  in  this  life.  The  poets  are,  in 
fact,  wise  men,  spiritual  legislators,  reformers,  who 
have  at  heart  the  redressing  of  wrongs;  and  in 
accomplishing  this  end,  —  either  because  they  fear 
to  rebuke  these  wrongs  openly,  or  because  they 
doubt  the  expediency  or  efficacy  of  such  frankness 
with  ignorant  people, — they  hide  their  true  mean- 
ing under  the  veil  of  pleasant  fables.  This  theory 
of  poetic  art,  one  of  the  commonplaces  of  the  age, 
may  be  described  as  the' great  legacy  of  the  Middle 
Ages  to  Renaissance  criticism. 

The  writers  of  the  second  stage  were,  in  many 
cases,  too  busy  with  questions  of  versification  and 
other  practical  matters  to  find  time  for  abstract 
theorizing  on  the  art  of  poetry.  A  long  period  of 
rhetorical  and  metrical  study  had  helped  to  formu- 
late a  rhetorical  and  technical  conception  of  the 
poet's  function,  aptly  exemplified  in  the  sonnet 
describing  the  perfect  poet  prefixed  to  King 
James's  brief  treatise  on  Scotch  poetry.'  The 
marks  of  a  perfect  poet  are  there  given  as  skilful- 
ness  in  the  rhetorical  figures,  quick  wit,  as  shown 
in  the  use  of  apt  and  pithy  words,  and  a  good  mem- 
ory ;  —  a  merely  external  view  of  the  poet's  gifts, 
which  takes  no  account  of  such  essentials  as  imag- 
1  Haslewood,  ii.  103. 


II.]        THE   GENERAL  THEORY   OF  POETRY       263 

ination,  sensibility,  and  knowledge  of  nature  and 
human  life. 

-  Webbe's  Discourse  of  English  Poetrie  (1586)  gives 
expression  to  a  conception  of  the  object  of  poetry 
■wbicli  is  the  logical  consequence  of  the  allegorical 
theory,  and  which  was  therefore  almost  universally 
accepted  by  Eenaissance  writers.  The  poet  teaches 
by  means  of  the  allegorical  truth  hidden  under  the 
pleasing  fables  he  invents  ;  but  his  first  object  must 
be  to  make  these  fables  really  pleasing,  or  the 
reader  is  deterred  at  the  outset  from  any  acquaint- 
ance with  the  poet's  works.  Poetry  is  therefore  a 
delightful  form  of  instruction  ;  it  pleases  and  profits 
together ;  but  first  of  all  it  must  delight,  "  for  the 
very  sum  and  chiefest  essence  of  poetry  did  always 
for  the  most  part  consist  in  delighting  the  readers 
or  hearers."  ^  The  poet  has  the  highest  welfare  of 
man  at  heart ;  and  by  his  sweet  allurements  to 
virtue  and  effective  caveats  against  vice,  he  gains 
his  end,  not  roughly  or  tyrannically,  but,  as  it 
were,  with  a  loving  authority.^  From  the  very  be- 
ginnings of  human  society  poetry  has  been  the 
means  of  civilizing  men,  of  drawing  them  from 
barbarity  to  civility  and  virtue.  If  it  be  objected 
that  this  art  —  or  rather,  from  the  divine  origin  of 
its  inspiration,  this  more  than  art  —  has  ever  been 
made  the  excuse  for  the  enticing  expression  of  ob- 
scenity and  blasphemy,  Webbe  has  three  answers. 
In  the  first  place,  poetry  is  to  be  moralized,  that  is, 
to  be  read  allegorically.  The  Metamorphoses  of 
Ovid,  for  example,  will  become,  when  so  understood, 
1  Haslewood,  ii.  28.  2  HyU.  U.  42. 


264       LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ENGLAND     [chap. 

a  fount  of  ethical  teaching ;  and  Harington,  a  f ew 
years  later,  actually  explains  in  detail  the  allegorical 
significance  of  the  fourth  book  of  that  poem.^  This 
was  a  well-established  tradition,  and  indeed  a  favo- 
rite occupation,  of  the  Middle  Ages  ;  and  the  Ovkle 
Moralise,  a  long  poem  by  Chretien  Le  Gouais, 
written  about  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, and  the  equally  long  Ovidian  commentary  of 
Pierre  BerQuire,  are  typical  examples  of  this  prac- 
tice.^ In  the  second  place,  the  picture  of  vices  to 
be  found  in  poetry  is  intended,  not  to  entice  the 
reader  to  imitate  them,  but  rather  to  deter  sensible 
men  from  doing  likewise  by  showing  the  misfor- 
tune that  inevitably  results  from  evil.  Moreover, 
obscenity  is  in  no  way  essentially  connected  with 
poetic  art ;  it  is  to  the  abuse  of  poetry,  and  not  to 
poetry  itself,  that  we  must  lay  all  blame  for  this 
fault. 

A  still  higher  conception  of  the  poet's  function  is 
to  be  found  in  Puttenham's  Arte  of  English  Poesie 
(1589).  The  author  of  this  treatise  informs  us 
that  he  had  lived  at  the  courts  of  Prance,  Italy,  and 
Spain,  and  knew  the  languages  of  these  and  other 
lands;  and  the  results  of  his  travels  and  studies 
are  sufficiently  shown  in  his  general  theory  of 
poetry.  His  conception  of  the  poet  is  directly 
based  on  that  of  Scaliger.  Poetry,  in  its  highest 
form,  is  an  art  of  "  making,"  or  creation ;  and  in 
this  sense  the  poet  is  a  creator  like  God,  and  forms 
a  world  out  of  nothing.     In  another  sense,  poetry 

1  Haslewood,  ii.  128. 

2  Jlist.  Liu.  de  la  France,  xxix.  502-525. 


II.]        THE   GENERAL   THEORY   OF'  POETRY       265 

is  an  art  of  imitation,  in  that  it  presents  a  true  and 
lively  picture  of  everything  set  before  it.  In  either 
case,  it  can  attain  perfection  only  by  a  divine  in- 
stinct, or  by  a  great  excellence  of  nature,  or  by 
vast  observation  and  experience  of  the  world,  or 
indeed  by  all  these  together ;  but  whatever  the  source 
of  its  inspiration,  it  is  ever  worthy  of  study  and 
praise,  and  its  creators  deserve  preeminence  and 
dignity  above  all  other  artificers,  scientific  or  me- 
chanical.^ The  poets  were  the  first  priests,  prophets, 
and  legislators  of  the  world,  the  first  philosophers, 
scientists,  orators,  historians,  and  musicians.  They 
have  been  held  in  the  highest  esteem  by  the  great- 
est men  from  the  very  first;  and  the  nobility, 
antiquity,  and  universality  of  their  art  prove  its 
preeminence  and  worth.  With  such  a  history  and 
such  a  nature,  it  is  sacrilege  to  debase  poetry,  or  to 
employ  it  upon  any  unworthy  subject  or  for  ignoble 
purpose.  Its  chief  themes  should  therefore  be  such 
as  these :  the  honor  and  glory  of  the  gods,  the 
worthy  deeds  of  noble  princes  and  great  warriors, 
the  praise  of  virtue  and  the  reproof  of  vice,  instruc- 
tion in  moral  doctrine  or  scientific  knowledge,  and 
finally,  "  the  common  solace  of  mankind  in  all  the 
travails  and  cares  of  this  transitory  life,"  or  even 
for  mere  recreation  alone.^ 

This  is  the  sum  of  poetic  theorizing  during  the 
second  stage  of  English  criticism.  Yet  it  was  at 
this  very  time  that  the  third,  or  apologetic,  period 
was  prepared  for  by  the  attacks  which  the  Puritans 
directed  against  poetry,  and  especially  the  drama. 
1  Puttenham,  p.  19  sq.  "  Ibid.  p.  39. 


266      LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ENGLAND      [chap. 

Of  these  attacks,  Gosson's,  as  the  most  celebrated, 
may  be  taken  as  the  type.  Underlying  the  rant 
and  exaggerated  vituperation  of  his  Schoole  of 
Abuse  (1579),  there  is  a  basis  of  right  principles, 
and  some  evidence  at  least  of  a  spirit  not  wholly 
vulgar.  He  was  a  moral  reformer,  an  idealist,  who 
looked  back  with  regret  toward  "  the  old  discipline 
of  England,"  and  contrasted  it  with  the  spirit  of 
his  own  day,  when  Englishmen  seemed  to  have 
"  robbed  Greece  of  gluttony,  Italy  of  wantonness, 
Spain  of  pride,  Erance  of  deceit,  and  Dutchland 
of  quaffing." '  The  typical  evidences  of  this  moral 
degradation  and  effeminacy  he  found  in  poetry  and 
the  drama ;  and  it  is  to  this  motive  that  his  bitter 
assault  on  both  must  be  ascribed.  He  specifically 
insists  that  his  intention  was  not  to  banish  poetry, 
or  to  condemn  music,  or  to  forbid  harmless  recrea- 
tion to  mankind,  but  merely  to  chastise  the  abuse 
of  all  these.^  He  praises  plays  which  possess  real 
moral  purpose  and  effect,  and  points  out  the  true 
use  and  the  worthy  subjects  of  poetry  much  in  the 
same  manner  as  Puttenham  does  a  few  years  later.'' 
But  he  affirms,  as  Plato  had  done  hundreds  of  years 
before,  and  as  a  distinguished  French  critic  has 
done  only  the  other  day,  that  art  contains  within 
itself  the  germ  of  its  own  disintegration ;  and  he 
shows  that  in  the  English  poetry  of  his  own  time 
this  disintegration  had  already  taken  place.  The 
delights  and  ornaments  of  verse,  intended  really  to 
make  moral  doctrine  more  pleasing  and  less  abstruse 

1  Gosson,  p.  34.  '^  Ibid.  p.  65. 

8  Ibid.  pp.  25,  40. 


II.]        THE   GENERAL  THEORY  OF   POETRY       267 

and  thorny,  had  become,  with  his  contemporaries, 
mere  alluring  disguises  for  obscenity  and  blas- 
phemy. 

In  the  first  of  the  replies  to  Gosson,  Lodge's  De- 
fence of  Poetry,  Musick,  and  Stage  Plays,  written 
before  either  of  the  treatises  of  Webbe  and  Putten- 
ham,  are  found  the  old  principles  of  allegorical  and 
moral  interpretation,  —  principles  which  to  us  may 
seem  well  worn,  but  which  to  the  English  criticism 
of  that  time  were  novel  enough.  Lodge  points  out 
the  efficacy  of  poetry  as  a  civilizing  factor  in  primi- 
tive times,  and  as  a  moral  agency  ever  since.  If  the 
poets  have  on  occasion  erred,  so  have  the  philoso- 
phers, even  Plato  himself,  and  grievously.^  Poetry 
is  a  heavenly  gift,  and  is  to  be  contemned  only 
when  abused  and  debased.  Lodge  did  not  perceive 
that  his  point  of  view  was  substantially  the  same 
as  his  opponent's;  and  indeed,  throughout  the 
Elizabethan  age,  there  was  this  similarity  in  the 
point  of  view  of  those  who  attacked  and  those  who 
defended  poetry.  Both  sides  admitted  that  not 
poetry,  but  its  abuse,  is  to  be  disparaged  ;  and  they 
differed  chiefly  in  that  one  side  insisted  almost 
entirely  on  the  ideal  perfection  of  the  poetic  art, 
while  the  other  laid  stress  on  the  debased  state  into 
which  it  had  fallen.  A  dual  point  of  view  was 
attempted  in  a  work,  licensed  in  January,  1600, 
which  professed  to  be  "a  commendation  of  true 
poetry,  and  a  discommendation  of  all  bawdy,  ribald, 
and  paganized  poets."*      This  Puritan  movement 

1  Lodge,  Defence  {Shakespeare  Soc.  Publ.),  p.  6. 

2  Arber,  Transcript  of  the  Stat.  Eeg.,  iii.  154. 


268        LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN  ENGLAND    [chap. 

against  the  paganization  of  poetry  corresponds  to 
the  similar  movement  started  by  the  Council  of 
Trent  in  Catholic  countries. 

The  theory  of  poetry  during  the  second  stage  of 
English  criticism  was  in  the  main  Horatian,  with 
such  additions  and  modifications  as  the  early 
Kenaissance  had  derived  from  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  Aristotelian  canons  had  not  yet  become  a  part 
of  English  criticism.  Webbe  alludes  to  Aristotle's 
dictum  that  Empedocles,  having  naught  but  metre 
in  common  with  Homer,  was  in  reality  a  natural 
philosopher  rather  than  a  poet ;  ^  but  all  such  allu- 
sions to  Aristotle's  Poetics  were  merely  incidental 
and  sporadic.  The  introduction  of  Aristotelianism 
into  England  was  the  direct  result  of  the  influence 
of  the  Italian  critics ;  and  the  agent  in  bringing 
this  new  influence  into  English  letters  was  Sir 
Philip  Sidney.  His  Defence  of  Poesy  is  a  veritable 
epitome  of  the  literary  criticism  of  the  Italian 
Kenaissance ;  and  so  thoroughly  is  it  imbued  with 
this  spirit,  that  no  other  work,  Italian,  French,  or 
English,  can  be  said  to  give  so  complete  and  so 
noble  a  conception  of  the  temper  and  the  principles 
of  Renaissance  criticism.  For  the  general  theory 
of  poetry,  its  sources  were  the  critical  treatises  of 
Minturno "  and  Scaliger.^  Yet  without  any  decided 
novelty  of  ideas,  or  even  of  expression,  it  can  lay 

1  Haslewood,  ii.  28. 

2  Sidney's  aequaiutance  with  Minturno  is  proved  beyond 
doubt,  even  were  such  proof  necessary,  by  the  list  of  poets 
{Defence,  pp.  2,  3)  which  he  has  copied  from  Miuturno's  De 
Poeta,  pp.  14,  15. 

8  Scaliger's  I'oetics  is  specifically  mentioned  and  cited  by 


II.]         TIIE   GENERAL   THEORY   OF   POETRY       269 

claim  to  distinct  originality  in  its  unity  of  feeling, 
its  ideal  and  noble  temper,  and  its  adaptation  to 
circumstance.  Its  eloquence  and  dignity  will  hardly 
appear  in  a  mere  analysis,  which  pretends  to  give 
only  the  more  important  and  fundamental  of  its 
principles ;  but  such  a  summary  —  and  this  is  quite 
as  important  —  will  at  least  indicate  the  extent  of 
its  indebtedness  to  Italian  criticism. 

In  all  that  relates  to  the  antiquity,  universality, 
and  preeminence  of  poetry,  Sidney  apparently  fol- 
lows Minturno.  Poetry,  as  the  first  light-giver  to 
ignorance,  flourished  before  any  other  art  or  science. 
The  first  philosophers  and  historians  were  poets ; 
and  such  supreme  works  as  the  Psalms  of  David 
and  the  Dialogues  of  Plato  are  in  reality  poetical. 
Among  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans,  the  poet  was 
regarded  as  a  sage  or  prophet ;  and  no  nation,  how- 
ever primitive  or  barbarous,  has  been  without  poets, 
or  has  failed  to  receive  delight  and  instruction  from 
poetry.^ 

But  before  proceeding  to  defend  an  art  so  ancient 
and  universal,  it  is  necessary  to  define  it ;  and  the 
definition  which  Sidney  gives  agrees  substantially 
with  what  might  be  designated  Renaissance  Aris- 
totelianism.  "  Poetry,"  says  Sidney,^  "  is  an  art  of 
imitation,  for  so  Aristotle  termeth  it  in  his  word 
/tAi'/ATjcri?,  that  is  to  say,  a  representing,  counterfeit- 
ing, or  figuring  forth;  to  speak  metaphorically,  a 

Sidney  four  or  five  times;  but  these  citations  are  far  from 
exhausting  his  indebtedness  to  Scaliger. 

1  Defence,  p.  2  sq. ;  ef.  Minturno,  De  Poeta,  pp.  9, 13. 

2  Defence,  p.  9. 


270      LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ENGLAND     [chap. 

speaking  picture/  with  this  end,  —  to  teach  and 
delight."  ^  Poetry  is,  accordingly,  an  art  of  imi- 
tation, and  not  merely  the  art  of  versifying;  for 
although  most  poets  have  seen  fit  to  apparel  their 
poetic  inventions  in  verse,  verse  is  but  the  raiment 
and  ornament  of  poetry,  and  not  one  of  its  causes 
or  essentials.^  "One  may  be  a  poet  without  vers- 
ing," says  Sidney,  "  and  a  versifier  without  poetry."  * 
Speech  and  reason  are  the  distinguishing  features 
between  man  and  brute;  and  whatever  helps  to 
perfect  and  polish  speech  deserves  high  commen- 
dation. Besides  its  mnemonic  value,  verse  is  the 
most  fitting  raiment  of  poetry  because  it  is  most 
dignified  and  compact,  not  colloquial  and  slipshod. 
But  with  all  its  merits,  it  is  not  an  essential  of 
poetry,  of  which  the  true  test  is  this,  —  feigning 
notable  images  of  vices  and  virtues,  and  teaching 
delightfully. 

In  regard  to  the  object,  or  function,  of  poetry, 
Sidney  is  at  one  with  Scaliger.  The  aim  of  poetry 
is  accomplished  by  teaching  most  delightfully  a 
notable  morality;  or,  in  a  word,  by  delightful  in- 
struction.*   Not  instruction  alone,  or  delight  alone, 

1  This  ancient  phrase  had  become,  as  has  been  seen,  a  com- 
monplace during  the  Renaissance.  C/.,  e.g.,  Dolce,  Osservationi, 
1560,  p.  189 ;  Vauquelin,  Ai't  Podt.  i.  226 ;  Camoens,  Liutiad.  vii.  7G. 

2  Sidney's  classification  of  poets,  Defence,  p.  9,  is  borrowed 
from  Scaliger,  Poet.  i.  3. 

2  Defence,  p.  11.    Cf.  Castelvotro,  Poetica,  pp.  23,  190. 

•*  Defence,  p.  33.  Cf.  Ronsard,  (Euvres,  iii.  19,  vii.  310;  and 
Shelley,  Defence  of  Poetry,  p.  9:  "The  distinction  between 
poets  and  prose  writers  is  a  vulgar  error." 

5  Defence,  pp.  47,  51.  Cf.  Scaliger,  Poet.  i.  1,  and  vii.  i.  2; 
*'  Poetse  finem  esse,  docere  cum  delectatione." 


II.]        THE   GENERAL  THEORY  OF  POETRY      271 

as  Horace  had  said,  but  instruction  made  delight- 
ful; and  it  is  this  dual  function  which  serves  not 
only  as  the  end  but  as  the  very  test  of  poetry. 
The  object  of  all  arts  and  sciences  is  to  lift  human 
life  to  the  highest  altitudes  of  perfection;  and  in 
this  respect  they  are  all  servants  of  the  sovereign, 
or  architectonic,  science,  whose  end  is  well-doing 
and  not  well-knowing  only.^  Virtuous  action  is 
therefore  the  end  of  all  learning ;  ^  and  Sidney  sets 
out  to  prove  that  the  poet,  more  than  any  one  else, 
conduces  to  this  end. 

This  is  the  beginning  of  the  apologetic  side  of 
Sidney's  argument.  The  ancient  controversy  — 
ancient  even  in  Plato's  days  —  between  poetry  and 
philosophy  is  once  more  reopened  ;  and  the  question 
is  the  one  so  often  debated  by  the  Italians,  —  shall 
the  palm  be  given  to  the  poet,  to  the  philosopher, 
or  to  the  historian  ?  The  gist  of  Sidney's  argument 
is  that  while  the  philosopher  teaches  by  precept 
alone,  and  the  historian  by  example  alone,  the  poet 
conduces  most  to  virtue  because  he  employs  both 
precept  and  example.  The  philosopher  teaches 
virtue  by  showing  what  virtue  is  and  what  vice  is, 
by  setting  down,  in  thorny  argument,  and  without 
clarity  or  beauty  of  style,  the  bare  rule.^  The  his- 
torian teaches  virtue  by  showing  the  experience  of 
past  ages;  but,  being  tied  down  to  what  actually 
happened,  that  is,  to  the  particular  truth  of  things 

1  Aristotle,  Ethics,  i.  1;  Cicero,  De  Offic.  i.  7. 

2  This  was  the  usual  attitude  of  the  humanists ;  cf.  Wood- 
ward, p.  182  sq. 

*  Of.  Danielle,  p.  19 ;  Minturno,  De  Poeta,  p.  39. 


272       LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ENGLAND     [chap. 

and  not  to  general  reason,  the  example  he  depicts 
draws  no  necessary  consequence.  The  poet  alone 
accomplishes  this  dual  task.  What  the  philosopher 
says  should  be  done  is  by  the  poet  pictured  most 
perfectly  in  some  one  by  whom  it  has  been  done, 
thus  coupling  the  general  notion  with  the  particular 
instance.  The  philosopher,  moreover,  teaches  the 
learned  only;  the  poet  teaches  all,  and  is,  in  Plu- 
tarch's phrase,  "the  right  popular  philosopher,"^ 
for  he  seems  only  to  promise  delight,  and  moves 
men  to  virtue  unawares.  But  even  if  the  philoso- 
pher excel  the  poet  in  teaching,  he  cannot  move  his 
readers  as  the  poet  can,  and  this  is  of  higher  impor- 
tance than  teaching ;  for  what  is  the  use  of  teaching 
virtue  if  the  pupil  is  not  moved  to  act  and  accom- 
plish what  he  is  taught  ?  ^  On  the  other  hand,  the 
historian  deals  with  particular  instances,  with  vices 
and  virtues  so  commingled  that  the  reader  can  find 
no  pattern  to  imitate.  The  poet  makes  history 
reasonable ;  he  gives  perfect  examples  of  vices  and 
virtues  for  human  imitation ;  he  makes  virtue 
succeed  and  vice  fail,  as  history  can  but  seldom  do. 
Poetry,  therefore,  conduces  to  virtue,  the  end  of  all 
learning,  better  than  any  other  art  or  science,  and 
so  deserves  the  palm  as  the  highest  and  the  noblest 
form  of  human  wisdom.^ 

The  basis  of  Sidney's  distinction  between  the 

1  Defence,  p.  18. 

^Ihid.  p.  22.  Cf.  Minturno,  De  Poeta,  p.  106;  Varchi, 
Lezzioni,  p.  570. 

8  That  is,  the  highest  form  of  human  wisdom,  for  Sidney,  as 
a  Christian  philosopher,  naturally  leaves  revealed  religion  out 
of  the  discussion. 


II.]        THE   GENEEAL  THEORY   OF   POETRY       273 

poet  and  the  historian  is  the  famous  passage  in 
which  Aristotle  explains  why  poetry  is  more  phil- 
osophic and  of  more  serious  value  than  history.^ 
The  poet  deals,  not  with  the  particular,  but  with  the 
universal,  —  with  what  might  or  should  be,  not  with 
what  is  or  has  been.  But  Sidney,  in  the  assertion 
of  this  principle,  follows  Minturno  ^  and  Scaliger,^ 
and  goes  farther  than  Aristotle  would  probably 
have  gone.  All  arts  have  the  works  of  nature  as 
their  principal  object,  and  follow  nature  as  actors 
follow  the  lines  of  their  play.  Only  the  poet  is 
not  tied  to  such  subjects,  but  creates  another  nature 
better  than  ever  nature  itself  brought  forth.  For, 
going  hand  in  hand  with  nature,,  and  being  enclosed 
not  within  her  limits,  but  only  by  the  zodiac  of  his 
own  imagination,  he  creates  a  golden  world  for 
nature's  brazen ;  and  in  this  sense  he  may  be  com- 
pared as  a  creator  with  God.*  Where  shall  you 
find  in  life  such  a  friend  as  Pylades,  such  a  hero  as 
Orlando,  such  an  excellent  man  as  J^^neas  ? 

Sidney  then  proceeds  to  answer  the  various  ob- 
jections that  have  been  made  against  poetry.  These 
objections,  partly  following  Gosson  and  Cornelius 
Agrippa,^  and  partly  his  own  inclinations,  he  re- 
duces to  four.^  In  the  first  place,  it  is  objected 
that  a  man  might  spend  his  time  more  profitably 
than  by  reading  the  figments  of  poets.  But  since 
teaching  virtue  is  the  real  aim  of  all  learning,  and 
since  poetry  has  been   shown   to   accomplish   this 

1  Poet.  ix.  1-4.  4  Defence,  pp.  7,  8. 

2  De  Poeta,  p.  87  sq.      ^  Be  Van.  et  Incert.  Sclent,  cap.  v. 
8  Poet.  i.  1.  6  Defence,  p.  34  sq. 

T 


274      LITERARY  CRITICISM   IN  ENGLAND     [chap. 

better  than  all  other  arts  or  sciences,  this  objection 
is  easily  answered.  In  the  second  place,  poetry  has 
been  called  the  mother  of  lies ;  but  Sidney  shows 
that  it  is  less  likely  to  misstate  facts  than  other 
sciences,  for  the  poet  does  not  publish  his  figments 
as  facts,  and,  since  he  affirms  nothing,  cannot  ever 
be  said  to  lie.^  Thirdly,  poetry  has  been  called  the 
nurse  of  abuse,  that  is  to  say,  poetry  misuses  and 
debases  the  mind  of  man  by  turning  it  to  wanton- 
ness and  by  making  it  unmartial  and  effeminate. 
But  Sidney  argues  that  it  is  man's  mt  that  abuses 
poetry,  and  not  poetry  that  abuses  man's  wit ;  and  as 
to  making  men  effeminate,  this  charge  applies  to  all 
other  sciences  more  than  to  poetry,  which  in  its 
description  of  battles  and  praise  of  valiant  men 
notably  stirs  courage  and  enthusiasm.  Lastly,  it 
is  pointed  out  by  the  enemies  of  poetry  that  Plato, 
one  of  the  greatest  of  philosophers,  banished  poets 
from  his  ideal  commonwealth.  But  Plato's  Dia- 
logues are  in  reality  themselves  a  form  of  poetry ; 
and  it  argues  ingratitude  in  the  most  poetical  of 
philosophers,  that  he  should  defile  the  fountain 
which  was  his  source.^  Yet  though  Sidney  perceives 
how  fundamental  are  Plato's  objections  to  poetry, 
he  is  inclined  to  believe  that  it  was  rather  against 
the  abuse  of  poetry  by  the  contemporary  Greek 
poets  that  Plato  was  chiefly  cavilling  ;  for  poets  are 
praised  in  the  Ion,  and  the  greatest  men  of  every 
age  have  been  patrons  and  lovers  of  poetry. 

1  Cf.  Boccaccio,  Gen.  degli  Dei,  p.  257  sq. ;  and  Haslewood, 
ii.  127. 

*  Defence,  pp.  3,  41 ;  cf.  Daniello,  p.  22. 


II.]        THE   GENERAL  THEORY  OF  POETRY      275 

^  In  the  dozen  years  or  so  which  elapsed  between 
the  composition  and  the  publication  of  the  Defence 
of  Poesy,  during  which  time  it  seems  to  have  circu- 
lated in  manuscript,  a  number  of  critical  works  ap- 
peared, and  the  indebtedness  of  several  of  them  to 
Sidney's  book  is  considerable.  This  is  especially 
so  of  the  Apologie  of  Poetrie  which  Sir  John  Har- 
ington  prefixed  to  his  translation  of  the  Orlando 
Furioso  in  1591.  This  brief  treatise  includes  an 
apology  for  poetry  in  general,  for  the  Orlando 
Furioso  in  particular,  and  also  for  his  own  transla- 
tion. The  first  section,  which  alone  concerns  us 
here,  is  almost  entirely  based  on  the  Defence  of 
Poesy.  The  distinguishing  features  of  poetry  are 
imitation,  or  fiction,  and  verse.  ^  Harington  dis- 
claims all  intention  of  discussing  whether  writers 
of  fiction  and  dialogue  in  prose,  such  as  Plato  and 
Xenophon,  are  poets  or  not,  or  whether  Lucan, 
though  writing  in  verse,  is  to  be  regarded  as  an 
historiographer  rather  than  as  a  poet ;  ^  so  that  his 
argument  is  confined  to  the  element  of  imitation, 
or  fiction.  He  treats  poetry  rather  as  a  propaedeutic 
to  theology  and  moral  philosophy  than  as  one  of  the 
fine  arts.  All  human  learning  may  be  regarded  by 
the  orthodox  Christian  as  vain  and  superfluous ; 
but  poetry  is  one  of  the  most  effective  aids  to  the 
higher  learning  of  God's  divinity,  and  poets  them- 
selves are  really  popular  philosophers  and  popular 
divines.  Harington  then  takes  up,  one  by  one,  the 
four  specific  charges  of  Cornelius  Agrippa,  that 
poetry  is  a  nurse  of  lies,  a  pleaser  of  fools,  a 
1  Haslewood,  ii.  129.  2  jn^  ji.  123. 


276       LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ENGLAND     [chap, 

breeder  of  dangerous  errors,  and  an  enticer  to  wan- 
tonness ;  and  answers  them  after  the  manner  of 
Sidney.  He  differs  from  Sidney,  however,  in  lay- 
ing particular  stress  on  the  allegorical  interpretation 
of  imaginative  literature.  This  element  is  mini- 
mized in  the  Defence  of  Poesy;  but  Harington 
accepts,  and  discusses  in  detail,  the  mediaeval  con- 
ception of  the  three  meanings  of  poetry,  the  literal, 
the  moral,  and  the  allegorical.^  The  death-knell  of 
this  mode  of  interpreting  literature  was  sounded  by 
Bacon,  who,  while  not  asserting  that  all  the  fables 
of  poets  are  but  meaningless  fictions,  declared  with- 
out hesitation  that  the  fable  had  been  more  often 
written  first  and  the  exposition  devised  afterward, 
than  the  moral  first  conceived  and  the  fable  merely 
framed  to  give  expression  to  it.^ 

This  passage  occurs  in  the  second  book  of  the 
Advancement  of  Learning  (1605),  where  Bacon  has 
briefly  stated  his  theory  of  poetry.  His  point  of 
view  does  not  differ  essentially  from  that  of  Sidney, 
though  the  expression  is  more  compact  and  logical. 
The  human  understanding,  according  to  Bacon,  in- 
cludes the  three  faculties  of  memory,  imagination, 
and  reason,  and  each  of  these  faculties  finds  typi- 
cal expression  in  one  of  the  three  great  branches  of 
learning,  memory  in  history,  reason  in  philosophy, 
and  imagination  in  poetry.^  The  imagination,  not 
being  tied  to  the  laws  of  matter,  may  join  what 
nature  has  severed  and  sever  what  nature  has  joined ; 
and  poetry,  therefore,  while  restrained  in  the  meas- 

1  Haslewood,  ii.  127.  2  Bacon,  Works,  vi.  204-206. 

8  Cy.  Anglia,  1899,  xxi.  273. 


II.]         THE   GENERAL   THEORY   OF   POETRY      277 

ure  of  words,  is  in  all  things  else  extremely  licensed. 
It  may  be  defined  as  feigned  history,  and  in  so  far 
as  its  form  is  concerned,  may  be  either  in  prose  or 
in  verse.  Its  soiirce  is  to  be  found  in  the  dissatis- 
faction of  the  human  mind  with  the  actual  world ; 
and  its  purpose  is  to  satisfy  man's  natural  longing 
for  more  perfect  greatness,  goodness,  and  variety 
than  can  be  found  in  the  nature  of  things.  Poetry 
therefore  invents  actions  and  incidents  greater  and 
more  heroic  than  those  of  nature,  and  hence  con- 
duces to  magnanimity;  it  invents  actions  more 
agreeable  to  the  merits  of  virtue  and  vice,  more 
just  in  retribution,  more  in  accordance  with  re- 
vealed providence,  and  hence  conduces  to  moral- 
ity ;  it  invents  actions  more  varied  and  unexpected, 
and  hence  conduces  to  delectation.  "And  there- 
fore it  was  ever  thought  to  have  some  participa- 
tion of  divineness,  because  it  doth  raise  the  mind, 
by  submitting  the  shows  of  things  to  the  desires 
of  the  mind;  whereas  reason  doth  buckle  and 
bow  the  mind  unto  the  nature  of  things."  ^  For 
the  expression  of  affections,  passions,  corruptions, 
and  customs,  the  world  is  more  indebted  to 
poets  than  to  the  works  of  philosophers,  and  for 
wit  and  eloquence  no  less  than  to  orators  and  their 
orations.  It  is  for  these  reasons  that  in  rude  times, 
when  all  other  learning  was  excluded,  poetry  alone 
found  access  and  admiration. 

This  is  pure  idealism  of  a  romantic  type ;  but  in 
his  remarks  on  allegory  Bacon  was  foreshadowing 
the  development  of  classicism,  for  from  the  time  of 
1  Works,  vi.  203. 


278      LITEKARY  CRITICISM  IN  ENGLAND     [chap. 

Ben  Jonson  the  allegorical  mode  of  interpreting 
poetry  ceased  to  have  any  effect  on  literary  criti- 
cism. The  reason  for  this  is  obvious.  The  alle- 
gorical critics  regarded  the  plot,  or  fable, — to  use 
a  simile  so  often  found  in  Renaissance  criticism  — 
as  a  mere  sweet  and  pleasant  covering  for  the 
wholesome  but  bitter  pill  of  moral  doctrine.  The 
neo-classicists,  limiting  the  sense  and  application  of 
Aristotle's  definition  of  poetry  as  an  imitation  of 
life,  regarded  the  fable  as  the  medium  of  this  imi- 
tation, and  the  more  perfect  according  as  it  became 
more  truly  and  more  minutely  an  image  of  human 
life.  In  criticism,  therefore,  the  growth  of  classi- 
cism is  more  or  less  coextensive  with  the  growth 
of  the  conception  of  the  fable,  or  plot,  as  an  end  in 
itself. 

This  vaguely  defines  the  change  which  comes 
over  the  spirit  of  criticism  about  the  beginning  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  which  is  exemplified 
in  the  writings  of  Ben  Jonson.  His  definition  of 
poetry  does  not  differ  substantially  from  that  of 
Sidney,  but  seems  more  directly  Aristotelian :  — 

"  A  poet,  poeta,  is  ...  a  maker,  or  feigner ;  his  art,  an 
art  of  imitation  or  feigning  ;  expressing  the  life  of  men  in  fit 
measure,  numbers,  and  harmony  ;  according  to  Aristotle 
from  the  word  iroieTv,  which  signifies  to  make  or  feign. 
Hence  he  is  called  a  poet,  not  he  which  writeth  in  measure 
only,  but  that  feigneth  and  formeth  a  fable,  and  writes 
things  like  the  truth  ;  for  the  fable  and  fiction  is,  as  it  were, 
the  form  and  soul  of  any  poetical  work  or  poem."  i 

1  Discoveries,  p.  73.  On  Jonson's  distinction  between  poet 
(poeta),  poem  {poema),  and  poesy  {poesia),  see  my  article  in 
Modern  Philology,  1905,  ii.  459,  n. 


II.]        THE   GENERAL  THEORY  OF  POETRY      279 

Poetry  and  painting  agree  in  that  both  are  arts  of 
imitation,  both  accommodate  all  they  invent  to  the 
use  and  service  of  nature,  and  both  have  as  their 
common  object  profit  and  pleasure ;  but  poetry  is  a 
higher  form  of  art  than  painting,  since  it  appeals 
to  the  understanding,  while  painting  appeals  pri- 
marily to  the  senses.^  Jonson's  conception  of  his  art 
is  thus  essentially  noble ;  of  all  arts  it  ranks  high- 
est in  dignity  and  ethical  importance.  It  contains 
all  that  is  best  in  philosophy,  divinity,  and  the 
science  of  politics,  and  leads  and  persuades  men  to 
virtue  with  a  ravishing  delight,  while  the  others 
but  threaten  and  compel.^  It  therefore  ojffers  to 
mankind  a  certain  rule  and  pattern  of  living  well 
and  happily  in  human  society.  This  conception  of 
poetry  Jonson  finds  in  Aristotle ;  ^  but  it  is  to  the 
Italians  of  the  Eenaissance,  and  not  to  the  Stagy- 
rite,  that  these  doctrines  really  belong. 

Jonson  ascribes  to  the  poet  himself  a  dignity  no 
less  than  that  of  his  craft.  Mere  excellence  in  style 
or  versification  does  not  make  a  poet,  but  rather  the 
exact  knowledge  of  vices  and  virtues,  with  ability 
to  make  the  latter  loved  and  the  former  hated;* 
and  this  is  so  far  true,  that  to  be  a  good  poet  it  is 
necessary,  first  of  all,  to  be  a  really  good  man.'^  A 
similar  doctrine  has  already  been  found  in  many 
critical  writers  of  the  sixteenth  century ;  but  per- 
haps the  noblest  expression  of  this  conception  of 
the  poet's  consecrated  character  and  office  occurs  in 

1  Discoveries,  p.  49.  8  lbi(j,  p.  74. 

^  Ibid.  P.M.  *  Ibid.  P.M. 

5  Works,  i.  333. 


280       LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN  ENGLAND     [chap. 

the  original  quarto  edition  of  Jonson's  Every  Man 
in  his  Humour,  in  which  the  "  reverend  name "  of 
poet  is  thus  exalted  :  — 

"  I  can  refell  opinion,  and  approve 
The  state  of  poesy,  such  as  it  is, 
Blessed,  eternal,  and  most  true  divine : 
Indeed,  if  you  will  look  on  poesy, 
As  she  appears  in  many,  poor  and  lame, 
Patched  up  in  remnants  and  old  worn-out  rags, 
Half-starved  for  want  of  her  peculiar  food, 
Sacred  invention  ;  then  I  must  confirm 
Both  your  conceit  and  censure  of  her  merit : 
But  view  her  in  her  glorious  ornaments. 
Attired  in  the  majesty  of  art, 
Set  high  in  spirit  with  the  precious  taste 
Of  sweet  philosophy  ;  and,  which  is  most. 
Crowned  with  the  rich  traditions  of  a  soul, 
That  hates  to  have  her  dignity  prophaned 
With  any  relish  of  an  earthly  thought, 
Oh  then  how  proud  a  presence  doth  she  bear  I 
Then  is  she  like  herself,  fit  to  be  seen 
Of  none  but  grave  and  consecrated  eyes."  ^ 

Milton  also  gives  expression  to  this  consecrated 
conception  of  the  poet.  Poetry  is  a  gift  granted  by 
God  only  to  a  few  in  every  nation ;  ^  but  he  who 
would  partake  of  the  gift  of  eloquence  must  first  of 
all  be  virtuous.^  It  is  impossible  for  any  one  to 
write  well  of  laudable  things  without  being  himself 
a  true  poem,  without  having  in  himself  the  experi- 
ence and  practice  of  all  that  is  praiseworthy.^ 
Poets  are  the  champions  of  liberty  and  the  "  strenu- 

1  Works,  i.  59,  n.  »  Ibid.  iil.  100. 

2  Milton,  Prose  Works,  ii.  479.  «  Ibid.  iii.  118. 


II.]    THE  GENERAL  THEORY  OF  POETRY   281 

ous  enemies  of  despotism  "  ;  ^  and  they  have  power 
to  imbreed  and  cherish  in  a  people  the  seeds  of 
virtue  and  public  civility,  to  set  the  affections  in 
right  tune,  and  to  allay  the  perturbations  of  the 
mind.^  Poetry,  which  at  its  best  is  "  simple,  sen- 
suous, and  passionate,"  describes  everything  that 
passes  through  the  brain  of  man,  —  all  that  is  holy 
and  sublime  in  religion,  all  that  in  virtue  is  amiable 
and  grave.  Thus  by  means  of  delight  and  the 
force  of  example,  those  who  would  otherwise  flee 
from  virtue  are  taught  to  love  her. 

1  Prose  Works,  i.  241.  2  Ibid.  ii.  479. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   THEORY    OF    DRAMATIC    AND    HEROIC    POETRY 

Dramatic  criticism  in  England  began  with  Sir 
Philip  Sidney.  Casual  references  to  the  drama 
can  be  found  in  critical  writings  anterior  to  the 
Defence  of  Poesy ;  but  to  Sidney  belongs  the  credit 
of  having  first  formulated,  in  a  more  or  less  sys- 
tematic manner,  the  general  principles  of  dramatic 
art.  These  principles,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  are 
those  which,  for  half  a  century  or  more,  had  been 
undergoing  discussion  and  modification  in  Italy  and 
France,  and  of  which  the  ultimate  source  was  the 
Poetics  of  Aristotle.  Dramatic  criticism  in  Eng- 
land was  thus,  from  its  very  birth,  both  Aristotelian 
and  classical,  and  it  remained  so  for  two  centuries. 
The  beginnings  of  the  Elizabethan  drama  were 
almost  contemporary  with  the  composition  of  the 
Defence  of  Poesy,  and  the  decay  of  the  drama 
with  Jonson's  Discoveries.  Yet  throughout  this 
period  the  romantic  drama  never  received  literary 
exposition.  The  great  Spanish  drama  had  its  criti- 
cal champions  and  defenders,  the  Elizabethan  drama 
had  none.  It  was,  perhaps,  found  to  be  a  simpler 
task  to  echo  the  doctrines  of  others,  than  to  formu- 
late the  principles  of  a  novel  dramatic  form.  But 
the  true  explanation  has  already  been  suggested. 
282 


CHAP.  III.]    DRAMATIC   AND  HEROIC   POETRY     283 

The  sources  of  the  dramatic  criticism  were  the 
writings  of  the  Italian  critics,  and  these  were  en- 
tirely classical.  In  creative  literature,  however, 
the  Italian  Renaissance  influenced  the  Elizabeth- 
ans almost  entirely  on  the  romantic  side.  This, 
perhaps,  suffices  to  explain  the  lack  of  fundamen- 
tal coordination  between  dramatic  theory  and  dra- 
matic practice  during  the  sixteenth  and  early 
seventeenth  centuries.  Ascham,  writing  twenty 
years  before  Sidney,  indicated  "Aristotle's  pre- 
cepts and  Euripides'  example "  as  the  criteria  of 
dramatic  art ;  ^  and  in  spirit  these  remained  the 
final  tests  throughout  the  Elizabethan  age. 

I,    Tragedy 

In  Webbe's  Discourse  of  English  Poetrie  we  find 
those  general  distinctions  between  tragedy  and 
comedy  which  had  been  common  throughout  the 
Middle  Ages  from  the  days  of  the  post-classic 
grammarians.  Tragedies  express  sorrowful  and 
lamentable  histories,  dealing  with  gods  and  god- 
desses, kings  and  queens,  and  men  of  high  estate, 
and  representing  miserable  calamities,  which  be- 
come worse  and  worse  until  they  end  in  the  most 
woful  plight  that  can  be  devised.  Comedies,  on 
the  other  hand,  begin  doubtfully,  become  troubled 
for  a  while,  but  always,  by  some  lucky  chance,  end 
with  the  joy  and  appeasement  of  all  concerned.^ 
This  distinction  is  said  to  be  derived  from  imitation 
of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey ;  and  in  this,  as  well  in 
1  Scholemaster,  p.  139.  ^  Haslewood,  ii.  40. 


284       LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ENGLAND     [chap. 

his  fanciful  account  of  the  origins  of  the  drama, 
Webbe  seems  to  have  had  a  vague  recollection  of 
Aristotle.  Puttenham's  account  of  dramatic  devel- 
opment is  scarcely  more  Aristotelian ;  ^  yet  in  its  gen- 
eral conclvisions  it  agrees  with  those  in  the  Poetics. 
His  conception  of  tragedy  and  comedy  is  similar 
to  Webbe's.  Comedy  expresses  the  common  be- 
havior and  manner  of  life  of  private  persons,  and 
such  as  are  of  the  meaner  sort  of  men.^  Tragedy 
deals  with  the  doleful  falls  of  unfortunate  and 
afflicted  princes,  for  the  purpose  of  reminding  men 
of  the  mutability  of  fortune,  and  of  God's  just  pun- 
ishment of  a  vicious  life.^ 

The  Senecan  drama  and  the  Aristotelian  precepts 
were  the  sources  of  Sidney's  theory  of  tragedy. 
The  oratorical  and  sententious  tragedies  of  Seneca 
had  influenced  dramatic  theory  and  practice  through- 
out Europe  from  the  very  outset  of  the  Renaissance. 
Ascham,  indeed,  preferred  Sophocles  and  Euripi- 
des to  Seneca,  and  cited  Pigna,  the  rival  of  Giraldi 
Cintio,  in  confirmation  of  his  opinion ;  *  but  this, 
while  an  indication  of  Ascham's  own  good  taste,  is 
an  exceptional  verdict,  and  in  direct  opposition  to 
the  usual  opinion  of  contemporary  critics.  Sidney, 
in  his  account  of  the  English  drama,  could  find  but 
one  tragedy  modelled  as  it  should  be  on  the  Sene- 
can drama.*  The  tragedy  of  Gorboduc,  however, 
has  one  defect  that  provokes  Sidney's  censure, — 
it  does  not  observe  the  unities  of  time  and  place. 

1  Puttenham,  p.  47  sq.  '  Ibid.  p.  49. 

2  Ibid.  p.  41.  *  Ascham,  Works,  ii.  189. 

6  Defence,  p.  47  sq. 


in.]  DRAMATIC   AND   HEROIC   POETRY  285 

In  all  other  respects,  it  is  an  ideal  model  for  Eng- 
lish playwrights  to  imitate.  Its  stately  speeches 
and  well-sounding  phrases  approach  almost  to  the 
height  of  Seneca's  style ;  and  in  teaching  most  de- 
lightfully a  notable  morality,  it  attains  the  very 
end  of  poetry. 

The  ideal  tragedy  —  and  in  this  Sidney  closely 
follows  the  Italians  —  is  an  imitation  of  a  noble 
action,  in  the  representation  of  which  it  stirs  "  ad- 
miration and  commiseration,"  ^  and  teaches  the 
uncertainty  of  the  world  and  the  weak  foundations 
upon  which  golden  roofs  are  built.  It  makes  kings 
fear  to  be  tyrants,  and  tyrants  manifest  their  tyran- 
nical humors.  Sidney's  censure  of  the  contempo- 
rary drama  is  that  it  outrages  the  grave  and  weighty 
character  of  tragedy,  its  elevated  style,  and  the 
dignity  of  the  personages  represented,  by  mingling 
kings  and  clowns,  and  introducing  the  most  inap- 
propriate buffoonery.  There  are,  indeed,  one  or 
two  examples  of  tragi-comedy  in  ancient  literature, 
such  as  Plautus's  Amphitryon ;  ^  but  never  do  the 
ancients,  like  the  English,  match  hornpipes  and 
funerals.^  The  English  dramas  are  neither  true 
comedies  nor  true  tragedies,  and  disregard  both 
the  rules  of  poetry  and  honest  civility.  Tragedy 
is  not  tied  to  the  laws  of  history,  and  may  arrange 
and  modify  events  as  it  pleases ;  but  it  is  certainly 
bound  by  the  rules  of  poetry.     It  is  evident,  there- 

1  Defence,  p.  28.  This  is  the  Elizabethan  equivalent  for  AriS' 
totle's  katharsis  of  "  pity  and  terror." 

2  Cf.  Scaliger,  Poet.  i.  7. 
*  Defence,  p.  50. 


286       LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ENGLAND     [chap. 

fore,  that  the  Defence  of  Poesy,  as  a  French  writer 
has  observed,  "  gives  us  an  almost  complete  theory 
of  neo-classic  tragedy,  a  hundred  years  before  the 
Art  Poetique  of  Boileau :  the  severe  separation  of 
poetic  forms,  the  sustained  dignity  of  language,  the 
unities,  the  tirade,  thp  recit,  nothing  is  lacking."  ^ 

Ben  Jonson  pays  more  attention  to  the  theory  of 
comedy  than  to  that  of  tragedy  ;  but  his  conception 
of  the  latter  does  not  differ  from  Sidney's.  The 
parts,  or  divisions,  of  comedy  and  tragedy  are  the 
same,  and  both  have  on  the  whole  a  common  end, 
to  teach  and  delight;  so  that  comic  as  well  as 
tragic  poets  were  called  by  the  Greeks  StSao-KaXoi.^ 
The  external  conditions  of  the  drama  require  that 
it  should  have  the  equal  division  into  acts  and 
scenes,  the  true  nvimber  of  actors,  the  chorus,  and 
the  unities.^  But  Jonson  does  not  insist  on  the 
strict  observance  of  these  formal  requirements,  for 
the  history  of  the  drama  shows  that  each  succes- 
sive poet  of  importance  has  gradually  and  ma- 
terially altered  the  dramatic  structure,  and  there  is 
no  reason  why  the  modern  poet  may  not  do  like- 
wise. Moreover,  while  these  requirements  may 
have  been  regularly  observed  in  the  ancient  state 
and  splendor  of  dramatic  poetry,  it  is  impossible  to 
retain  them  now  and  preserve  any  measure  of  pop- 
ular delight.  The  outward  forms  of  the  ancients, 
therefore,  may  in  part  be  disregarded ;  but  there  are 
certain  essentials  which  must  be  observed  by  the 
tragic  poet  in  whatsoever  age  he  may  flourish. 
These  are,  "  Truth  of  argument,  dignity  of  persons, 

1  Breitinger,  p.  37.       '^  JJiscoveries,  p.  81.        ^  Works,  i.  69. 


III.]  DRAMATIC   AND   HEROIC    POETRY         287 

gravity  and  height  of  elocution,  fulness  and  fre- 
quency of  sentence."  *  In  other  words,  Jonson's 
model  is  the  oratorical  and  sententious  tragedy  of 
Seneca,  with  its  historical  plots  and  its  persons  of 
high  estate. 

In  the  address,  "  Of  that  Sort  of  Dramatic  Poem 
which  is  called  Tragedy,"  prefixed  to  Samson 
Agonistes,  Milton  has  minutely  adhered  to  the  Ital- 
ian theory  of  tragedy.  After  referring  to  the 
ancient  dignity  and  moral  effect  of  tragedy,^  Milton 
acknowledges  that,  in  the  modelling  of  his  poem, 
he  has  followed  the  ancients  and  the  Italians  as  of 
greatest  authority  in  such  matters.  He  has  avoided 
the  introduction  of  trivial  and  vulgar  persons  and 
the  intermingling  of  comic  and  tragic  elements; 
he  has  used  the  chorus,  and  has  observed  the  laws 
of  verisimilitude  and  decorum.  His  explanation  of 
the  peculiar  effect  of  tragedy  —  the  purgation  of 
pity  and  fear  —  has  already  been  referred  to  in  the 
first  section  of  this  essay.^ 

II.    Comedy 

The  Elizabethan  theory  of  comedy  was  based  on 
the  body  of  rules  and  observations  which  the  Ital- 
ian critics,  aided  by  a  few  hints  from  Aristotle,  had 
deduced  from  the  practice  of  Plautus  and  Terence. 

1  Works,  i.  272. 

2  Cf.  Bacon,  De  Augm.  Sclent,  iii.  13;  and  Ascham,  Schole- 
master,  p.  130. 

3  He  seems  also  to  allude  to  the  theory  of  katharsis  in  the 
Reason  of  Church  Government;  Prose  IForts,  ii.  479. 


288       LITER'AEY   CRITICISM   IN   ENGLAND     [chap. 

It  will,  therefore,  be  iinnecessary  to  dwell  at  any 
great  length  on  the  doctrines  of  Sidney  and  Ben 
Jonson,  who  are  the  main  comic  theorists  of  this 
period.  Sidney  defines  comedy  as  "an  imitation 
of  the  common  errors  of  our  life,"  which  are  repre- 
sented in  the  most  ridiculous  and  scornful  manner, 
so  that  the  spectator  is  anxious  to  avoid  such  errors 
himself.  Comedy,  therefore,  shows  the  "  filthiness 
of  evil,"  but  only  in  "our  private  and  domestical 
matters."  ^  It  should  aim  at  being  wholly  delight- 
ful, just  as  tragedy  should  be  maintained  by  a 
well-raised  admiration.  Delight  is  thus  the  first 
requirement  of  comedy;  but  the  English  comic 
writers  err  in  thinking  that  delight  cannot  be  ob- 
tained without  laughter,  whereas  laughter  is  neither 
an  essential  cause  nor  an  essential  effect  of  delight. 
Sidney  then  distinguishes  delight  from  laughter 
almost  exactly  after  the  manner  of  Trissino.^  The 
great  fault  of  English  comedy  is  that  it  stirs 
laughter  concerning  things  that  are  sinful,  i.e. 
execrable  rather  than  merely  ridiculous  —  forbid- 
den plainly,  according  to  Sidney,  by  Aristotle  him- 
self—  and  concerning  things  that  are  miserable, 
and  rather  to  be  pitied  than  scorned.  Comedy 
should  not  only  produce  delightful  laughter,  but 
mixed  with  it  that  delightful  teaching  which  is  the 
end  of  all  poetry. 

Ben  Jonson,  like  Sidney,  makes  human  follies  or 
errors  the  themes  of  comedy,  which  should  be 

1  Defence,  p.  28. 

2  Ibid.  p.  50  sq.     Cf.  Trissino,  Opere,  ii.  127  sq.;  aud  Cicero, 
De  Oral.  ii.  58  sq. 


III.]  DRAMATIC   AND   HEROIC   POETRY         289 

"  an  image  of  the  times, 
And  sport  with  human  follies,  not  with  crimes, 
Except  we  make  them  such,  by  loving  still 
Our  popular  errors,  when  we  know  they're  ill ; 
I  mean  such  errors  as  you'll  all  confess 
By  laughing  at  them,  they  deserve  no  less."i 

In  depicting  these  human  follies,  it  is  the  ofi&ce 
of  the  comic  poet  to  imitate  justice,  to  improve  the 
moral  life  and  purify  language,  and  to  stir  up  gentle 
affections.-  The  moving  of  mere  laughter  is  not 
always  the  end  of  comedy ;  in  fact,  Jonson  inter- 
prets Aristotle  as  asserting  that  the  moving  of 
laughter  is  a  fault  in  comedy,  a  kind  of  turpitude 
that  depraves  a  part  of  man's  nature.^  This  con- 
clusion is  based  on  an  interpretation  of  Aristotle 
which  has  persisted  almost  to  the  present  day.  In 
the  Poetics,  to  yeXoilov,  the  ludicrous,  is  said  to  be 
the  subject  of  comedy;*  and  many  critics  have 
thought  that  Aristotle  intended  by  this  to  distin- 
guish between  the  risible  and  the  ridiculous,  be- 
tween mere  laughter  and  laughter  mixed  with 
contempt  or  disapprobation.^  The  nature  and  the 
source  of  one  of  the  most  important  elements  in 
Jonson's  theory  of  comedy,  his  doctrine  of  "  hu- 
mours," have  been  briefly  discussed  in  the  first 
section  of  this  essay.  It  will  suffice  here  to  define 
a  "  humour  "  as  an  absorbing  singularity  of  char- 
acter,® and  to  note  that  it  grew  out  of  the  concep- 

1  Works,  i.  2.  8  Discoveries,  p.  82. 

2  Ibid.  i.  335.  •*  Poet.  v.  1. 

5  Cf.  Twining,  i.  320  sq.,  and  Karnes,  Elements  of  Criticism, 
vol.  i.  chap.  7. 

6  Cf.  Jonson,  Works,  i.  67  and  31. 

u 


290      LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ENGLAND     [chap. 

tiou  of  decorum  which  played  so  important  a  part 
in  poetic  theory  during  the  Italian  Eenaissance. 


III.    The  Dramatic  Unities 

Before  leaving  the  theory  of  the  drama,  there  is  one 
further  point  to  be  discussed,  —  the  doctrine  of  the 
unities.  It  has  been  seen  that  the  unities  of  time 
and  place  were,  in  Italy,  first  formulated  together 
by  Castelvetro  in  1570,  and  in  France  by  Jean  de  la 
Taille  in  1572.  The  first  mention  of  the  unities  in 
England  is  to  be  found,  a  dozen  years  later,  in  the 
Defence  of  Poesy,  and  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  Sid- 
ney derived  them  directly  from  Castelvetro.  Sid- 
ney, in  discussing  the  tragedy  of  Gorbocluc,  finds  it 
"  faulty  in  time  and  place,  the  two  necessary  com- 
panions of  all  corporal  actions ;  for  where  the  stage 
should  ahvays  represent  but  one  place,  and  the 
uttermost  time  presupposed  in  it  should  be,  both 
by  Aristotle's  precept  and  common  reason,  but  one 
day,  there  [?'.e.  in  Goi'bocluc^  is  both  many  days  and 
many  places  inartificially  imagined."  ^  He  also  ob- 
jects to  the  confusions  of  the  English  stage,  where 
on  one  side  Africa  and  on  the  other  Asia  may  be 
represented,  and  where  in  an  hour  a  youth  may  grow 
from  boyhood  to  old  age.^  How  absurd  this  is, 
common  sense,  art,  and  ancient  examples  ought  to 

1  Defence,  p.  48;  c/.  Castelvetro,  Poetica,  pp.  1G8,  5.')4. 

2  Cf.  Whetstone,  Promos  and  Cassandra  (1578).  cited  in  Ward, 
Dram.  Lit.  i.  118;  also,  Jonson,  Works,  i.  2.  70:  Cervantes, 
Don  Quiz.  i.  48;  Boileau,  Art  Podf.  iii.  39.  In  tlie  theory  of  the 
drama,  Sidney's  point  of  view  coincides  very  closely  with  that 
of  Cervantes. 


III.]  DRAMATIC  AND   HEROIC  POETRY         291 

teach  the  English  playwright ;  and  at  this  day,  says 
Sidney,  the  ordinary  players  in  Italy  will  not  err  in 
it.  If  indeed  it  be  objected  that  one  or  two  of  the 
comedies  of  Plautus  and  Terence  do  not  observe  the 
unity  of  time,  let  ns  not  follow  them  when  they  err 
but  when  they  are  right ;  it  is  no  excuse  for  us  to 
do  wrong  because  Plautus  on  one  occasion  has  done 
likewise. 

The  law  of  the  unities  does  not  receive  such  rigid 
application  in  England  as  is  given  by  Sidney  imtil 
the  introduction  of  the  French  influence  nearly  three 
qiiarters  of  a  century  later.  Ben  Jonson  is  con- 
siderably less  stringent  in  this  respect  than  Sidney. 
He  lays  particular  stress  on  the  unity  of  action, 
and  in  the  Discoveries  explains  at  length  the  Aris- 
totelian conception  of  the  unity  and  magnitude  of 
the  fable.  "  The  fable  is  called  the  imitation  of  one 
entire  and  perfect  action,  whose  parts  are  so  joined 
and  knit  together,  as  nothing  in  the  structure  can 
be  changed,  or  taken  away,  without  impairing  or 
troubling  the  whole,  of  which  there  is  a  proportion- 
able magnitude  in  the  members."  ^  Simplicity, 
then,  should  be  one  of  the  chief  characteristics  of 
the  action,  and  nothing  receives  so  much  of  Jonson's 
censure  as  "  monstrous  and  forced  action."  -  As  to 
the  unity  of  time,  Jonson  says  that  the  action  should 
be  allowed  to  grow  until  necessity  demands  a  con- 
clusion ;  the  argument,  however,  should  not  exceed 
the  compass  of  one  day,  but  should  be  large  enough 
to  allow  place  for  digressions  and  episodes,  which 
are  to  the  fable  what  furniture  is  to  a  house.* 
1  Discoveries,  p.  83.         2  Works,  i.  337.         *  Discoveries,  p.  85. 


292       LITERARY   CRITICISM   I>f   ENGLAND     [chap. 

Jonson  does  not  formally  require  the  observance  of 
the  unity  of  place,  and  even  acknowledges  having 
disregarded  it  in  his  own  plays ;  but  he  does  not 
favor  much  change  of  scene  on  the  stage.  In  the 
prologue  of  Volpone,  he  boasts  that  he  has  followed 
all  the  laws  of  refined  comedy, 

"  As  best  critics  have  designed  ; 
The  laws  of  time,  place,  persons  he  observeth', 
From  no  needful  rule  he  swerveth." 

Milton  observes  the  unity  of  time  in  the  Samson 
Agonistes :  "  The  circumscription  of  time,  wherein 
the  whole  drama  begins  and  ends  is,  according  to 
ancient  rule  and  best  example,  within  the  space  of 
twenty-four  hours." 

With  the  introduction  of  the  French  influence, 
the  unities  became  fixed  requirements  of  the  Eng- 
lish drama,  and  remained  so  for  over  a  century. 
Sir  Robert  Howard,  in  the  preface  of  his  tragedy, 
The  Duke  of  Lerma,  impugned  their  force  and 
authority;  but  Dry  den,  in  answering  him,  pointed 
out  that  to  attack  the  unities  is  really  to  contend 
against  Aristotle,  Horace,  Ben  Jonson,  and  Corneille.^ 
Farquhar,  however,  in  his  Discourse  upon  Comedy 
(1702),  argued  with  force  and  wit  against  the  uni- 
ties of  time  and  place,  and  scoffed  at  all  the  legisla- 
tors of  Parnassus,  ancient  and  modern,  —  Aristotle, 
Horace,  Scaliger,  Vossius,  Heinsius,  D'Aubiguac, 
and  Rapin. 

1  Essay  of  Dram.  Poesy,  p.  118. 


III.]  DRAMATIC   AND   HEROIC   POETRY         293 

IV.  JEpic  Poetry 

The  Elizabethan  theory  of  heroic  poetry  may  be 
dismissed  briefly.  Webbe  refers  to  the  epic  as 
"  that  princely  part  of  poetry,  wherein  are  dis- 
played the  noble  acts  and  valiant  exploits  of  puissant 
captains,  expert  soldiers,  wise  men,  with  the  fa- 
mous reports  of  ancient  times ; "  '  and  Puttenham 
defines  heroic  poems  as  "  long  histories  of  the  noble 
gests  of  kings  and  great  princes,  intermeddling  the 
dealings  of  gods,  demi-gods,  and  heroes,  and  weighty 
consequences  of  peace  and  war."  -  The  importance 
of  this  form  of  poetry,  according  to  Puttenham,  is 
largely  historical,  in  that  it  sets  forth  an  example 
of  the  valor  and  virtue  of  our  forefathers.^  Sidney 
is  scarcely  more  explicit.*  He  asserts  that  heroic 
poetry  is  the  best  and  noblest  of  all  forms;  he 
shows  that  such  characters  as  Achilles,  ^neas,  and 
Rinaldo  are  shining  examples  for  all  men's  imita- 
tion ;  but  of  the  nature  or  structure  of  the  epic  he 
says  nothing. 

The  second  part  of  Harington's  Apologie  of  Poe- 
trie  is  given  up  to  a  defence  of  the  Orlando  Furioso, 
and  here  the  Aristotelian  theory  of  the  epic  appears 
for  the  first  time  in  English  criticism.  Harington, 
taking  the  ^neid  as  the  approved  model  of  all 
heroic  poetry,  first  shows  that  Ariosto  has  followed 
closely  in  Virgil's  footsteps,  but  is  to  be  preferred 
even  to  Virgil  in  that  the  latter  pays  reverence  to 
false  deities,  while  Ariosto  has  the  advantage  of  the 

1  Haslewood,  ii.  45.  3  JMd.  p.  54. 

2  Puttenham,  p.  40.  •*  Defence,  p.  30, 


294       LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ENGLAND     [chap. 

Christian  spirit.  But  since  some  critics,  "  reducing 
all  heroical  poems  unto  the  method  of  Homer  and 
certain  precepts  of  Aristotle,"  insist  that  Ariosto 
is  wanting  in  art,  Harington  sets  out  to  prove  that 
the  Orlando  Furioso  may  not  only  be  defended  by 
the  example  of  Homer,  but  that  it  has  even  fol- 
lowed very  strictly  the  rules  and  precepts  of  Aris- 
totle.^ In  the  first  place,  Aristotle  says  that  the 
epic  should  be  based  on  some  historical  action,  only 
a  short  part  of  which,  in  point  of  time,  should  be 
treated  by  the  poet ;  so  Ariosto  takes  the  story  of 
Charlemagne,  and  does  not  exceed  a  year  or  so  in 
the  compass  of  the  argument.^  Secondly,  Aristotle 
holds  that  nothing  that  is  utterly  incredible  should 
be  invented  by  the  poet ;  and  nothing  in  the  Orlando 
exceeds  the  possibility  of  belief.  Thirdly,  epics, 
as  well  as  tragedies,  should  be  full  of  TreptTreVeta, 
which  Harington  interprets  to  mean  "  an  agnition 
of  some  unlooked  for  fortune  either  good  or  bad, 
and  a  sudden  change  thereof  "  ;  and  of  this,  as  well 
as  of  apt  similitudes  and  passions  well  expressed, 
the  Orlando  is  really  full. 

In  conclusion,  it  may  be  observed  that  epic 
poetry  did  not  receive  adequate  critical  treatment 
in  England  until  after  the  introduction  of  the 
French  influence.  The  rules  and  theories  of  the 
Italian  Renaissance,  restated  in  the  writings  of  Le 
Bossu,  Mambrun,  Rapin,  and  Vossius,  were  thus 
brought  into  English  criticism,  and  found  perhaps 

1  Haslewood,  ii.  140  sq. 

2  Cf.  Miuturno,  Arte  Poetica,  p.  71 ;  and  Ronsard,  CEuvres, 
iii.  19. 


III.]  DRAI\LA.TIC   AND   HEROIC   POETRY         296 

their  best  expression  in  Addison's  essays  on  Para- 
dise Lost.  Such  epics  as  Davenant's  Gondihert, 
Chamberlayne's  Pharonnida,  Dryden's  Annus  Mira- 
bilis,  and  Blackmore's  Prince  Arthur,  like  the 
French  epics  of  the  same  period,  doubtless  owed 
their  inspiration  to  the  desire  to  put  into  practice 
the  classical  rules  of  heroic  poetry.^ 

1  Of.  Dryden,  Discourse  on  Satire,  in  Works,  adii.  37. 


CHAPTER  IV 


I.    Introductory :  Romantic  Elements 

It  were  no  less  than  supererogation  to  adduce 
evidences  of  the  romantic  spirit  of  the  age  of 
Shakespeare.  No  period  in  English  literature  is 
more  distinctly  romantic ;  and  although  in  England 
criticism  is  less  affected  by  creative  literature,  and 
has  had  less  effect  upon  it,  than  in  France,  it  is 
only  natural  to  suppose  that  Elizabethan  criticism 
should  be  as  distinctly  romantic  as  the  works  of 
imagination  of  which  it  is  presumably  an  exposi- 
tion. As  early  as  Wilson's  Rhetoric  we  find  evi- 
dences of  that  independence  of  spirit  in  questions 
of  art  which  seems  typical  of  the  Elizabethan  age ; 
and  none  of  the  writers  of  this  period  exhibits  any- 
thing like  the  predisposition  of  the  French  mind  to 
submit  instinctively  to  any  rule,  or  set  of  rules, 
which  bears  the  stamp  of  authority.  From  the 
outset  the  element  of  nationality  colors  English 
criticism,  and  this  is  especially  noticeable  in  the 
linguistic  discussions  of  the  age.  At  the  very  time 
when  Sidney  was  writing  the  Defence  of  Poesy, 
Spenser's  old  teacher,  Mulcaster,  wrote :  "  I  love 
Rome,  but  London  better;  I  favor  Italy,  but  Eng- 
296 


CHAP.  IV.]  CLASSICAL   ELEMENTS  297 

land  more ;  I  honor  the  Latin,  but  I  worship  the 
English."^  It  is  this  spirit  which  pervades  what 
may  be  called  the  chief  expression  of  the  romantic 
temper  in  Elizabethan  criticism,  —  Daniel's  Defence 
of  Rhyme  (1603),  written  in  answer  to  Campion's 
attack  on  rhyme  in  the  Observations  in  the  Art  of 
English  Poesy.  The  central  argument  of  Daniel's 
defence  is  that  the  use  of  rhyme  is  sanctioned  both 
by  custom  and  by  nature  —  "  custom  that  is  before 
all  law,  nature  that  is  above  all  art."  ^  He  rebels 
against  that  conception  which  would  limit 

"  Within  a  little  plot  of  Grecian  ground 
The  sole  of  mortal  things  that  can  avail ;  " 

and  he  shows  that  each  age  has  its  own  perfections 
and  its  own  usages.  This  attempt  at  historical 
criticism  leads  him  into  a  defence  of  the  Middle 
Ages ;  and  he  does  not  hesitate  to  assert  that  even 
classical  verse  had  its  imperfections  and  deficien- 
cies. In  the  minutiae  of  metrical  criticism,  also,  he 
is  in  opposition  to  the  neo-classic  tendencies  of  the 
next  age ;  and  his  favorable  opinion  of  enjambement 
and  his  unfavorable  comments  on  the  heroic 
couplet^  drew  from  Ben  Jonson  an  answer,  never 
published,  in  which  the  latter  attempted  to  prove 
that  the  couplet  is  the  best  form  of  English  verse, 
and  that  all  other  forms  are  forced  and  detestable.* 

1  Morley,  English  Writers,  Lx.  187. 

2  Haslewood,  ii.  197.  ' 
8  Ihid.  ii.  217. 

4  Jonson,  Works,  iii.  470.    Cf.  Gascoigne's  comments  on  cn- 
jambement,  in  Haslewood,  ii.  11, 


298      LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ENGLAND     [chap. 

II.    Classical  Metres 

Daniel's  Defence  of  Rhyme  may  be  said  to  have 
dealt  a  death-blow  to  a  movement  whicli  for  over 
half  a  century  had  been  a  subject  of  controversy 
among  English  men  of  letters.  In  reading  the 
critical  works  of  this  period,  it  is  impossible  not  to 
notice  the  remarkable  amount  of  attention  paid  by 
the  Elizabethans  to  the  question  of  classical  metres 
in  the  vernacular.  The  first  organized  attempt  to 
introduce  the  classical  versification  into  a  modern 
language  was,  as  Daniel  himself  points  out,^  that  of 
Claudio  Tolomei  in  1539.  The  movement  then 
passed  into  France;  and  classical  metres  were 
adopted  by  Baif  in  practice,  and  defended  by 
Jacques  de  la  Taille  in  theory.  In  England  the 
first  recorded  attempt  at  the  use  of  quantity  in  the 
vernacular  was  that  of  Thomas  Watson,  from  whose 
unpublished  translation  of  the  Odyssey  in  the 
metre  of  the  original  Ascham  has  cited  a  single 
distich :  — 

"  All  travellers  do  gladly  report  great  prayse  of  Ulysses, 
For  that  he  knew  many  mens  maners,  and  saw  many 
cities."  2 

This  was  probably  written  between  1540  and  1550 ; 
toward  the  close  of  the  preceding  century,  Ave  are 
told,  a  certain  Mousset  had  already  translated  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  into  French  hexameters. 

Ascham  was  the  first  critical  champion  of  tlie 
use  of  quantity  in  English  verse. ^     Rhyme,  he  says, 

1  Haslewood,  ii.  205.  2  Scholemaster,  p.  73. 

3  Ibid.  p.  145  sq. 


IV.]  CLASSICAL  ELEMENTS  299 

was  introduced  by  the  Goths  and  Huns  at  a  time 
when  poetry  and  learning  had  ceased  to  exist  m 
Europe ;  and  Englishmen  must  choose  either  to 
imitate  these  barbarians  or  to  follow  the  perfect 
Grecians.  He  acknowledges  that  the  monosyllabic 
character  of  the  English  language  renders  the  use 
of  the  dactyl  very  difficult,  for  the  hexameter  "  doth 
rather  trot  and  hobble  than  run  smoothly  in  our 
English  tongue ; "  but  he  argues  that  English  will 
receive  the  carmen  iambicum  as  naturally  as  Greek 
or  Latin.  He  praises  Surrey's  blank  verse  rendering 
of  the  fourth  book  of  the  u-Eneid,  but  regrets  that, 
in  disregarding  quantity,  it  falls  short  of  the  "  per- 
fect and  true  versifying."  An  attempt  to  put 
Ascham's  theories  into  practice  was  made  by 
Thomas  Blenerhasset  in  1577 ;  but  the  verse  of  his 
Complaynt  of  Cadwallader,  though  purporting  to  be 
"  a  new  kind  of  poetry,"  is  merely  an  unrhymed 
Alexandrine.^ 

In  1580,  however,  five  letters  which  had  passed 
between  Spenser  and  Gabriel  Harvey  appeared  in 
print  as  Three  proper,  and  wittie,  familiar  Letters  and 
Two  other  very  commendable  Letters;  and  from  this 
correspondence  we  learn  that  an  organized  move- 
ment to  introduce  classical  metres  into  English 
had  been  started.  It  would  seem  that  for  several 
years  Harvey  had  been  advocating  the  use  of  quan- 
titative verse  to  several  of  his  friends;  but  the 
organized  movement  to  which  reference  has  just 

1  Cf.  Haslewood,  ii.  p.  xxii.  The  treatises  of  Gascoigne 
(1575)  and  King  James  VI.  (1584)  contain  no  reference  to  quan- 
titative verse. 


300      LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ENGLAND     [chap. 

been  made  seems  to  have  been  started  independently 
by  Thomas  Drant,  who  died  in  1578.  Drant  had 
devised  a  set  of  rules  and  precepts  for  English  clas- 
sical verse ;  and  these  rules,  with  certain  additions 
and  modifications,  were  adopted  by  a  coterie  of 
scholars  and  courtiers,  among  them  being  Sidney, 
Dyer,  Greville,  and  Spenser,  who  thereupon  formed 
a  society,  the  Areopagus,^  independent  of  Harvey, 
but  corresponding  with  him  regularly.  This  so- 
ciety appears  to  have  been  modelled  on  Baif's 
Academic  de  Poesie  et  de  Musique,  which  had 
been  founded  in  1570  for  a  similar  purpose,  and 
which  Sidney  doubtless  became  acquainted  with 
when  at  Paris  in  1572. 

From  the  correspondence  published  in  1580,  it 
becomes  evident  that  Harvey's  and  Drant's  systems 
of  versification  were  almost  antipodal.  According 
to  Drant's  system,  the  quantity  of  English  words 
was  to  be  regulated  entirely  by  the  laws  of  Latin 
prosody,  —  by  position,  diphthong,  and  the  like. 
Thus,  for  example,  the  penult  of  the  word  carpenter 
was  regarded  as  long  by  Drant  because  followed  by 
two  consonants.  Harvey,  who  was  unacquainted 
with  Drant's  rules  before  apprised  of  them  by 
Spenser  in  the  published  letters,  follows  a  more 
normal  and  logical  system.  To  him,  accent  alone  is 
the  test  of  quantity,  and  the  law  of  position  cannot 
make  the  penult  of  carpenter  or  majesty  long. 
"  The  Latin  is  no  rule  for  us,"  says  Harvey ;  ^  and 
often  where  position  and  diphthong  fall  together, 

1  Cf.  Pulci,  Morgante  Maggiore,  xxv.  117. 

2  Haslewood,  ii.  280. 


IV.]  CLASSICAL   ELEMENTS  301 

as  in  the  penult  of  vierchaundise,  we  must  pronounce 
the  syllable  short.  In  all  such  matters,  the  use, 
custom,  propriety,  or  majesty  of  om-  speech  must  be 
accounted  the  only  infallible  and  sovereign  rule  of 
rules. 

It  was  not,  then,  Harvey's  purpose  to  Latinize 
our  tongue.  His  intention  was  apparently  two- 
fold, —  to  abolish  rhyme,  and  to  introduce  new 
metres  into  English  poetry.  Only  a  few  years  be- 
fore, Gascoigne  had  lamented  that  English  verse 
had  only  one  form  of  metre,  the  iambic.^  Harvey, 
in  observing  merely  the  English  accent,  can  scarcely 
be  said  to  have  introduced  quantity  into  our  verse, 
but  was  simply  adapting  new  metres,  such  as 
dactyls,  trochees,  and  spondees,  to  the  requirements 
of  English  poetry. 

Drant's  and  Harvey's  rules  therefore  constitute 
two  opposing  systems.  According  to  the  former, 
English  verse  is  to  be  regulated  by  Latin  prosody 
regardless  of  accent;  according  to  the  latter,  by 
accent  regardless  of  Latin  prosody.  By  neither 
system  can  quantity  be  successfully  attempted  in 
English;  and  a  distinguished  classical  scholar  of 
our  own  day  has  indicated  what  is  perhaps  the  only 
method  by  which  this  can  be  accomplished.^  This 
method  may  be  described  as  the  harmonious  ob- 
servance of  both  accent  and  position  ;  all  accented 
syllables  being  generally  accounted  long,  and  no 
syllable  which  violates  the  Latin  law  of  position 

1  Haslewood,  ii.  5. 

2  R.  Ellis,  Poems  and  Fragments  of  Catullus  translated  in 
the  original  metres,  London,  1871,  p.  xiv,  sq. 


302       LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ENGLAND     [chap. 

being  used  when  a  short  syllable  is  required  by  the 
scansion.  These  three  systems,  with  more  or  less 
variation,  have  been  employed  throughout  English 
literature.  Drant's  system  is  followed  in  the 
quantitative  verse  of  Sidney  and  Spenser ;  Harvey's 
method  is  that  employed  by  Longfellow  in  Evange- 
line; and  Tennyson's  beautiful  classical  experi- 
ments are  practical  illustrations  of  the  method  of 
Professor  Robinson  Ellis. 

In  1582,  Richard  Stanyhurst  published  at  Leyden 
a  translation  of  the  first  four  books  of  the  ^neid 
into  English  hexameters.  Erom  Ascham  he  seems 
to  have  derived  his  inspiration,  and  from  Harvey 
his  metrical  system.  Like  Harvey  he  refuses  to  be 
bound  by  the  laws  of  Latin  prosody,^  and  follows 
the  English  accent  as  much  as  possible.  But  in 
one  respect  his  translation  is  unique.  Harvey,  in 
his  correspondence  with  Spenser,  had  suggested 
that  the  use  of  quantitative  verse  in  English  neces- 
sitated the  adoption  of  a  certain  uniformity  in 
spelling;  and  the  curious  orthography  of  Stany- 
hurst was  apparently  intended  as  a  serious  attempt 
at  phonetic  reform.  Spelling  reform  had  been 
agitated  in  France  for  some  time;  and  in  Baif's 
Etrennes  de  Poisie  frangoise  (1574),  we  find  French 
quantitative  verse  written  according  to  the  phonetic 
system  of  Ramus. 

Webbe's  Discourse  of  English  Poetrie  is  really  a 
plea  in  favor  of  quantitative  verse.  His  system  is 
based  primarily  on  Latin  prosody,  but  reconciled 
with  English  usage.     The  Latin  rules  are  to  be  fol- 

1  Stanyhurst,  p.  11  sq. 


IV.]  CLASSICAL  ELEMENTS  303 

lowed  when  the  English  and  Latin  words  agree; 
but  no  word  is  to  be  used  that  notoriously  impugns 
the  laws  of  Latin  prosody,  and  the  spelling  of  Eng- 
lish words  should,  when  possible,  be  altered  to 
conform  to  the  ancient  rules.  The  difficulty  of 
observing  the  law  of  position  in  the  middle  of  Eng- 
lish words  may  be  obviated  by  change  in  spelling, 
as  in  the  word  mournfully,  which  should  be  spelled 
Tnournfuly;  but  where  this  is  impossible,  the  law  of 
position  is  to  be  observed,  despite  the  English 
accent,  as  in  royalty.  Unlike  Ascham,  Webbe  re- 
gards the  hexameter  as  the  easiest  of  all  classical 
metres  to  use  in  English.^ 

Puttenham  is  not  averse  to  the  use  of  classical 
metres,  but  as  a  conservative  he  considers  all  sud- 
den innovations  dangerous.^  The  system  he  adopts 
is  not  unlike  Harvey's.  Sidney's  original  enthusi- 
asm for  quantitative  verse  soon  abated ;  and  in  the 
Defence  of  Poesy  he  points  out  that  although  the 
ancient  versification  is  better  suited  to  musical  ac- 
companiment than  the  modern,  both  systems  cause 
delight,  and  are  therefore  equally  effective  and  valu- 
able ;  and  English  is  more  fitted  than  any  other 
language  to  use  both.^  Campion,  like  Ascham,  re- 
gards English  polysyllables  as  too  heavy  to  be  used 
as  dactyls ;  so  that  only  trochaic  and  iambic  verse 
can  be  suitably  employed  in  English  poetry.'*  He 
suggests  eight  new  forms  of  verse.  The  English 
accent  is  to  be  diligently  observed,  and  is  to  yield 
to  nothing   save   the   law  of  position;   hence   the 

1  Haslewood,  ii.  69.  ^  Defence,  p.  55. 

2  Puttenham,  p.  126  sq.  *  Haslewood,  ii.  167. 


304      LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN  ENGLAOT)      [chap. 

second  syllable  of  Trumjnngton  is  to  be  accounted 
long.^  In  observing  the  law  of  position,  however, 
the  sound,  and  not  the  spelling,  is  to  be  the  test 
of  quantity ;  thus,  love-sick  is  pronounced  love-sik, 
dangerous  is  pronounced  dangerus,  and  the  like.^ 

III.    Other  Evidences  of  Classicism 

With  Campion's  Observations  (1602)  the  history 
of  classical  metres  in  England  may  be  said  to 
close,  until  the  resuscitation  of  quantitative  verse 
in  the  present  century.  Daniel's  Defence  of  Rhyme 
effectually  put  an  end  to  this  innovation;  but  the 
strong  hold  which  the  movement  seems  to  have  had 
during  the  Elizabethan  age  is  interesting  evidence 
of  the  classical  tendencies  of  the  period.  Ben 
Jonson  has  usually  been  regarded  as  the  forerun- 
ner of  neo-classicism  in  England ;  but  long  before 
his  influence  was  felt,  classical  tendencies  ma}^ 
be  observed  in  English  criticism.  Thus  Ascliam's 
conservatism  and  aversion  to  singularity  in  mat- 
ters of  art  are  distinctly  classical.  "  He  that  can 
neither  like  Aristotle  in  logic  and  philosophy,  nor 
Tully  in  rhetoric  and  eloquence,"  says  Ascham, 
''  will  from  these  steps  likely  enough  presume  by 
like  pride  to  mount  higher  to  the  misliking  of 
graver  matters ;  that  is,  either  in  religion  to  have 
a  dissentious  head,  or  in  the  commonwealth  to  have 
a  factious  heart."'  His  insistence  that  it  is  no 
slavery  to  be  bound  by  the  laws  of  art,  and  the  stress 
he  lays  on  perfection  of  style,  are  no  less  classical.* 

1  Haslewood,  ii.  186.  ^  Scholemaster,  p.  93. 

2  Cf.  Ellis,  op.  cit.,  p.  xvi.  ■*  Ibid.  pp.  US,  121. 


IT.]  CLASSICAL   ELEMENTS  305 

Similar  tendencies  may  be  observed  in  the  writers 
that  follow  Ascham.  Harvey's  strictures  on  the 
Faerie  Queene  were  inspired  by  two  influences.  As 
a  humanist,  he  looked  back  with  contempt  on 
mediaeval  literature  in  general,  its  superstitions, 
its  fairy  lore,  and  the  like.  As  a  classicist  in  art, 
he  preferred  the  regular,  or  classic,  form  of  the 
epic  to  the  romantic,  or  irregular  form ;  and  his 
strictures  may  be  compared  in  this  respect  with 
those  of  Bembo  on  the  Orlando  or  those  of  Salviati 
on  the  Gerusalemme.  So  Harington  attempts  to 
make  the  Orlando  chime  with  the  laws  of  Aristotle, 
and  Sidney  attempts  to  force  these  laws  on  the 
English  drama.  So  also  Sidney  declares  that  genius, 
without  "  art,  imitation,  and  exercise,"  is  as  noth- 
ing, and  censures  his  contemporaries  for  neglect- 
ing "  artificial  rules  and  imitative  patterns."  ^  So 
Webbe  attempts  to  find  a  fixed  standard  or  criterion 
by  which  to  judge  good  and  bad  poets,  and  trans- 
lates Fabricius's  summary  of  the  rules  of  Horace  as 
a  guide  for  English  poetry.^ 

English  criticism,  therefore,  may  be  said  to  ex- 
hibit classical  tendencies  from  its  very  beginning. 
But  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  before  Ben  Jonson 
there  was  no  systematic  attempt  to  force,  as  it  were, 
the  classic  ideal  on  English  literature.  In  Spain, 
as  has  been  seen,  Juan  de  la  Cueva  declared  that 
poetry  should  be  classical  and  imitative,  while  the 
drama  should  be  romantic  and  original.  Sidney, 
on  the  contrary,  sought  to  make  the  drama  classi- 
cal, while  allowing  freedom  of  imagination  and 
1  Defence,  p.  46.  ^  Haslewood,  ii.  19,  85  sq. 

X 


306       LITEUARY   CRITICISM   IN   ENGLAND     [chap. 

originality  of  form  to  the  non-dramatic  poet.  Ben 
Jonson  was  the  first  complete  and  consistent  Eng- 
lish classicist ;  and  his  classicism  differs  from  that 
of  the  succeeding  age  rather  in  degree  than  in  kind. 

Bacon's  assertion  that  poetry  is  restrained  in 
the  measure  of  words,  but  in  all  other  points  ex- 
tremely licensed/  is  characteristic  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan point  of  view.  The  early  critics  allowed 
extreme  license  in  the  choice  and  treatment  of 
material,  while  insisting  on  strict  regularity  of 
expression.  Thus  Sidney  may  advocate  the  use 
of  classical  metres,  but  this  does  not  prevent  him 
from  celebrating  the  freedom  of  genius  and  the 
soaring  heights  of  the  imagination.  There  is  noth- 
ing of  these  things  in  Ben  Jonson.  He,  too,  cele- 
brates the  nobility  and  power  of  poetry,  and  the 
dignity  of  the  poet's  office;  but  nowhere  does  he 
speak  of  the  freedom  of  the  imagination  or  the 
force  of  genius.  Literature  for  him  was  not  an 
expression  of  personality,  not  a  creation  of  the 
imagination,  but  an  image  of  life,  a  picture  of  the 
world.  In  other  words,  he  effected  what  may  be 
called  an  objectification  of  the  literary  ideal. 

In  the  second  place,  this  image  of  life  can  be 
created  only  by  conscious  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
artist.  For  the  creation  of  great  poetry,  genius, 
exercise,  imitation,  and  study  are  all  necessary, 
but  to  these  art  must  be  added  to  make  them  per- 
fect, for  only  art  can  lead  to  perfection.^  It  is  this 
insistence  on  art  as  a  distinct  element,  almost  as 
an  end   in  itself,  that  distinguishes  Jonson  from 

1  Works,  vi.  202.  *  Discoveries,  p.  78. 


IV.]  CLASSICAL  ELEMENTS  307 

his  predecessors;  and  nowhere  is  his  ideal  of  art 
expressed  as  pithily  as  in  the  address  to  the  reader 
prefixed  to  the  Alchemist  (1612)  :  — 

"  In  Poetry,  especially  in  Plays,  .  .  .  the  concupiscence 
of  dances  and  of  antics  so  reigneth,  as  to  run  away  from 
nature,  and  be  afraid  of  her,  is  the  only  point  of  art  that 
tickles  the  spectators.  But  how  out  of  purpose,  and  place, 
do  I  name  art  ?  When  the  professors  are  grown  so  .obsti- 
nate contemners  of  it,  and  presumers  on  their  own  naturals, 
as  they  are  deriders  of  all  diligence  that  way,  and,  by  sim- 
ple mocking  at  the  terms,  when  they  understand  not  the 
things,  think  to  get  off  wittily  with  their  ignorance.  Nay, 
they  are  esteemed  the  more  learned,  and  sufficient  for  this, 
by  the  many,  through  their  excellent  vice  of  judgment. 
For  they  commend  writers  as  they  do  fencers  or  wrestlers  ; 
who,  if  they  come  in  robustiously,  and  put  for  it  with  a 
great  deal  of  violence,  are  received  for  the  braver  fellows ; 
when  many  times  their  own  rudeness  is  the  cause  of  their 
disgrace,  and  a  little  touch  of  their  adversary  gives  aU  that 
boisterous  force  the  foil.  I  deny  r':..  out  that  these  men, 
who  always  seek  to  do  more  than  enough,  may  some  time 
happen  on  some  thing  that  is  good  and  great  ;  but  very 
seldom  ;  and  when  it  comes  it  doth  not  recompense  the  rest 
of  their  ill.  .  .  .  But  I  give  thee  warning,  that  there  is  a 
great  difference  between  those  that,  to  gain  the  opinion  of 
copy  [i.e.  copiousness],  utter  all  they  can,  however  unfitly  ; 
and  those  that  use  election  and  a  mean  ^  [i.e.  selection  and 
moderation].  For  it  is  only  the  disease  of  the  unskilful  to 
think  rude  things  greater  than  polished ;  or  scattered  more 
numerous  than  composed."  2 

Literature,  then,  aims  at  presenting  an  image 
of  life  through  the  medium  of  art;  and  the  guide 

1  Cf.  Scaliger,  Poet.  v.  3,  where  the  highest  virtue  of  a  poet 
is  said  to  be  electio  et  sui  fastidium ;  and  vi.  4,  where  it  is  said 
that  the  "  life  of  all  excellence  lies  in  measure." 

2  Works,  ii.  3;  cf.  Discoveries,  pp.  22-27. 


308       LITERARY   CRITICISM   IN   ENGLAND     [chap. 

to  art,  according  to  Jonson,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
rules  of  criticism.  Thus,  for  example,  success  in 
comedy  is  to  be  attained 

"  By  observation  of  those  comic  laws 
WMch  I,  your  master,  first  did  teach  the  age  ; "  ^ 

and  elsewhere,  it  will  be  remembered,  Jonson  boasts 
that  he  had  swerved  from  no  "  needful  law."  But 
though  art  can  find  a  never-failing  guide  and  moni- 
tor in  the  rules  of  criticism,  he  does  not  believe 
in  mere  servile  adherence  to  the  practice  or  theory 
of  classical  literature.  The  ancients  are  to  be  re- 
garded as  guides,  not  commanders.^  In  short,  the 
English  mind  was  not  yet  prepared  to  accept  the 
neo-classic  ideal  in  all  its  consequences ;  and  abso- 
lute subservience  to  ancient  authority  came  only 
with  the  introduction  of  the  French  influence. 

This  is,  perhaps,  best  indicated  by  the  history 
of  Aristotle's  influence  in  English  criticism  from 
Ascham  to  Milton.  The  first  reference  to  the 
Poetics  in  England  is  to  be  found  in  Ascham's 
Scholemaster.^  There  we  are  told  that  Ascham, 
Cheke,  and  Watson  had  many  pleasant  talks  to- 
gether at  Cambridge,  comparing  the  poetic  pre- 
cepts of  Aristotle  and  Horace  with  the  examples 
of  Euripides,  Sophocles,  and  Seneca.  In  Sidney's 
Defence  of  Poesy,  Aristotle  is  cited  several  times ; 
and  in  the  drama,  his  authority  is  regarded  by 
Sidney  as  almost  on  a  par  with  that  of  the  "  com- 
mon reason."  ^     Harington  was  not  satisfied  until  he 

1  Works,  iii.  297.  »  Scholemaster,  p.  139. 

a  Discoveries,  p.  7.  *  Defence,  p.  48. 


IV.]  CLASSICAL   ELEMENTS  309 

had  proved  that  the  Orlando  agrees  substantially 
with  Aristotle's  requirements.  Jonson  wrote  a 
commentary  on  Horace's  Ars  Poetica,  with  elucida- 
tions from  Aristotle,  in  which 

"  All  the  old  Venusine  [i.e.  Horace],  in  poetry, 
And  lighted  by  the  Stagyrite  [i.e.  Aristotle],  could  spy, 
"Was  there  made  English  ;  "  i 

but  the  manuscript  was  unfortunately  destroyed  by 
fire  in  1623.  Yet  Jonson  was  aware  how  ridiculous 
it  is  to  make  any  author  a  dictator.^  His  admira- 
tion for  Aristotle  was  great ;  but  he  acknowledges 
that  the  Aristotelian  rules  are  useless  without  natu- 
ral talent,  and  that  a  poet's  liberty  cannot  be  bound 
within  the  narrow  limits  prescribed  by  grammari- 
ans and  philosophers.^  At  the  same  time,  he 
points  out  that  Aristotle  was  the  first  critic,  and 
the  first  of  all  men  to  teach  the  poet  how  to  write. 
The  Aristotelian  authority  is  not  to  be  contemned, 
since  Aristotle  did  not  invent  his  rules,  but,  taking 
the  best  things  from  nature  and  the  poets,  con- 
verted them  into  a  complete  and  consistent  code  of 
art.  Milton,  also,  had  a  sincere  admiration  for  "  that 
sublime  art  which  [is  taught]  in  Aristotle's  Poetics, 
in  Horace,  and  the  Italian  commentaries  of  Castel- 
vetro,  Tasso,  Mazzoni,  and  others."  *  But  despite  all 
this,  the  English  independence  of  spirit  never 
failed ;    and  before  the  French  influence  we   can 

1  Works,  ill.  321 ;  c/.  i.  335,  iii.  487. 

2  Discoveries,  p.  66. 

3  Ibid.  p.  78  sq. 

4  Works,  iii.  473. 


310    LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  ENGLAND  [chap.  iv. 

find  no  such,  thing  in  English  criticism  as  the  lit- 
erary dictatorship  of  Aristotle.^ 

^The  chapter  on  poetry  iu  Peacham's  Compleat  Gentleman 
(1622)  is  interestiDg  chiefly  because  of  its  indebtedness  to 
Scaliger,  who  is  called  by  Peacham  (p.  91)  "  the  prince  of  all 
learning  and  the  judge  of  judgments,  the  divine  Julius  Csesar 
Scaliger."  This  constitutes  him  a  literary  arbiter  if  not  dic- 
tator. In  the  Great  Assises  holden  in  Parnassus  (1645),  Scaliger 
is  proclaimed  one  of  the  lords  of  Parnassus,  in  company  with 
Bacon,  Sidney,  Erasmus,  Budaeus,  Heinsius,  Vossius,  Casaubon, 
Mascardi,  Pico  della  Miraudola,  Selden,  Grotius,  and  others. 
The  star  of  scholarship  in  criticism  was  passing  northward ; 
for  the  influence  of  the  Dutch  critics  on  Jonson  and  others,  see 
my  Critical  Essays  of  the  Seventeenth  Century,  Oxford,  1908, 
vol.  i.  pp.  xvi-xviii. 


CONCLUSION 

It  has  been  established,  I  think,  that  by  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  a  unified  body  of 
poetic  rules  and  theories  had  been  developed  in 
Italy,  and  then  passed  into  France,  England,  Spain, 
Germany,  Portugal,  and  Holland,  and  through  Hol- 
land into  Scandinavia;^  so  that  by  the  beginning 
of  the  seventeenth  century  there  was  a  common 
body  of  Renaissance  doctrine  throughout  western 
Europe.  Each  country  gave  this  system  a  national 
cast  of  its  own,  but  the  form  which  it  received  in 
France  ultimately  triumphed ;  and  modern  classi- 
cism therefore  represents  the  supremacy  of  the 
French  phase  or  version  of  Renaissance  Aristote- 
lianism.  This  critical  system  was  first  developed 
by  the  formal  treatises  on  poetics  during  the  Cin- 
quecento,  but  it  is  a  mistake  to  consider  them  as 
merely  isolated  monuments,  or  as  furnishing  the 
only  ways  in  which  poets,  critics,  and  scholars 
approached  the  study  of  literature.  They  repre- 
sent, in  fact,  but  one  of  several  critical  heirlooms 
which  Italy  passed  on  to  its  foster-child  France, 

The  humanists,  as  Professor  Vossler  has  shown,^ 
conceived  of  the  nature  of  poetry  in  terms,  first  of 

1  For  the  influence  of  Heinsius  and  other  Dutch  critics  in 
Sweden,  c/.  E.  Wrangel,  Sveriges  litterUra  fiirbindelser  med 
Holland,  sdrdeles  under  1600-falet,  Lund,  1897. 

2  Poetische  Theorien  in  der  italienischen  Fruhrenaissance, 
Berlin,  1900,  p.  88. 

311 


312  CONCLUSION 

theology,  then  of  oratory,  and  finally  of  rhetoric 
and  philology.  This  development,  while  appar- 
ently in  the  direction  of  an  aesthetic  interest  in 
literature,  was  really  tending  toward  an  exclusive 
attention  to  external  details,  and,  as  an  inevitable 
result  of  the  growth  of  erudition,  toward  a  loss 
of  interest  in  poetry  for  itself  as  a  creative  art. 
The  ^impassioned  defences  of  poetry  by  Petrarch, 
Boccaccio,  and  Coluccio  Salutati,  in  which  its  vital 
impulse  was  conceived  to  be  at  one  with  that  of 
God  himself,  were  succeeded  by  calmer  studies  in 
which  poetry  was  given  a  place  side  by  side  with 
the  other  humanistic  disciplines.  "When  I  say 
letters  {litter as), ''^  says  Ermolao  Barbaro,  "I  mean 
philosophy  which  is  conjoined  with  eloquence."  ^ 
*'  The  poet  differs  in  no  way  from  the  orator,"  says 
Tiphernas,  echoing  Cicero,  "  except  that  he  is  per- 
mitted to  roam  about  more  freely,  is  somewhat 
more  restricted  in  his  numbers,  and  approaches 
more  closely  to  music."-  So  that,  while  Humanism 
might  during  its  progress  emphasize  this  or  that 
side  of  humanistic  culture,  it  tended  more  and  more 
to  concern  itself  with  the  whole  body  of  classical 
studies,  and  to  consider  them  as  forming  a  unity  in 
themselves.  The  studia  sapientice  and  the  studia 
eloquentioe,  at  first  carefully  distinguished  from 
each  other,  tended  more  and  more  to  merge  in 
the   single    category   of   strcdia  litterarum.^     "The 

1  Angeli  PoUtiani  Opera,  Lugduni,  1539,  p.  457. 
'2K.  Miilluer,  lieden  U7id  Brief e  italienischrr  Huinaiiisten. 
Vienna,  ISitO,  p.  187. 

8  Cf.  V.  Rossi,  II  Quattrocento,  Milan,  n.d.,  p.  407  sq.  (note 
on  pp.  2,3). 


CONCLUSION  313 

moderns,"  Vives  justly  complained,  in  his  De  Causis 
Corruptarum  Artium,  "  confound  the  arts  by  reason 
of  their  resemblance,  and  of  two  that  are  very 
much  opposed  to  each, other  make  a  single  art. 
They  call  rhetoric  grammar,  and  grammar  rhetoric, 
because  both  treat  of  language.  The  poet  they  call 
orator,  and  the  orator  poet,  because  both  put  elo- 
quence and  harmony  into  their  discourses."  ^ 

To  this  body  of  secular  learning,  — massed  under 
the  general  head  of  Utteroe,  or  studia  humanitatis,  or 
eloquentia,  or  philologia,  according  to  the  predominat- 
ing interest  of  the  period  or  the  individual  taste  of 
the  writer,  —  the  chief  opposition  was  represented 
by  the  two  great  mediaeval  survivals,  the  tradition 
of  scholastic  training  and  the  tradition  of  chivalry. 
The  defence  of  letters  against  the  first  was  under- 
taken by  the  pedagogic  treatises  of  the  fifteenth 
and  early  sixteenth  centuries.  All  the  writers 
on  humanistic  education  —  the  Italians,  Leonardo 
Bruni,  ^neas  Sylvius  Piccolomini,  Maffeo  Vegio, 
Battista  Guarino,  Jacopo  di  Porcia,  the  Frenchman 
Budseus,  the  Dutchman  Erasmus,  the  German 
Sturm,  the  Spaniard  Vives,  the  Englishmen  Elyot 
and  Ascham  —  not  only  explain,  but  also  defend, 
the  position  of  classical  literature,  and  especially 
classical  poetry,  in  the  new  scheme  of  teaching.  It 
is  the  charges  of  paganism  and  immorality  which 
chiefly  confront  them ;  and  though  they  advance 
few,  if  any,  original  arguments  in  answering  these 

1  Opera,  ed.  Mayans,  Valencia,  1785,  vi.  64.  For  the  signifi- 
cance of  Vives  as  a  critic,  see  the  Italian  translation  of  this 
book,  p.  139,  n. 


314  CONCLUSION 

charges,  they  emphasize  the  educative  and  refining 
influence  of  literary  study,  and  indicate  its  value  as 
nourishment  for  the  young  mind. 

Similarly,  the  tradition  of  chivalry  —  the  tradi- 
tion of  the  active  life  par  excellence,  which  fomid 
little  place  for  culture  —  raised  the  question  whether 
or  not  the  study  of  letters  is  practically  useless  to 
the  gentleman,  whether  it  conduces  to  effeminacy, 
whether  it  unfits  him  for  the  martial  or  courtly 
life.  The  question  was  so  often  debated  that 
Castiglione,  in  the  Cortegiano  (1528),  could  say 
that  "as  this  controversy  has  already  been  long 
waged  by  very  wise  men,  there  is  no  need  to  renew 
it."  But  few  Cinquecento  treatises  on  the  courtier, 
on  the  gentleman,  on  honor,  on  manners  and 
courtesy,  fail  to  discuss  the  relative  merits  of  letters 
and  arms  as  accomplishments  for  perfect  manhood ; 
and  not  a  few  separate  tractates,  such  as  Nifo's 
De  Armorum  Litterarumque  Comparatione  and  Gia- 
comini  Tebalducci  Malespini's  Delia  Nohiltdb  delle 
Lettere  e  delle  Armi,  are  devoted  to  the  same  theme. 
The  controversy  between  Muzio,  who  espoused  the 
cause  of  letters  in  his  17  Gentilhuomo,  and  Mora, 
who  espoused  that  of  arms  in  his  II  Cavaliere, 
is  well  known.  But  the  consensus  of  opinion 
tended  wholly  in  one  direction.  Castiglione  and 
Guazzo  might  differ  as  to  whether  preeminence 
should  be  accorded  to  letters  or  arms,  but  they 
agreed  fundamentally  that  both  are  essential  to  a 
Complete  man.  The  argument  centred  for  the 
most  part  on  the  question  of  glory :  did  letters  or 
arms  bring  the  greater  fame  ?     So,  in  early  days, 


CONCLUSION  315 

when  chivalry  had  been  confronted  by  the  conflict 
between  arms  and  love,  between  the  reward  of 
chivalrous  deeds  (ol  pretz  d''armas  e  de  cavallairia), 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  delights  of  gallantry  (lo 
joy  de  dompnas  e  d'amia),  on  the  other,^  it  was  the 
same  question  of  honor,  of  glory,  which  was  at 
stake;  it  was  the  same  doubt  as  to  the  ett'eminizing 
effect  of  love  on  valor  that  agitated  the  chivalric 
mind.  But  humanism  justified  culture  beyond  all 
dispute  as  a  gentle  accomplishment.  Loys  le  Eoy, 
in  his  Vicissitude,  showed  the  concurrence  of  letters 
and  arms  among  all  civilized  nations ;  and  William 
Segar,  in  his  Honor  Military  and  Civil,  summed  up 
the  whole  discussion  by  asserting  that  "the  en- 
deavor of  a  gentleman  ought  to  be  either  in  arms  or 
learning,  or  in  them  both ;  and  in  my  own  poor 
conceit,  hardly  deserveth  he  any  title  of  honor  that 
doth  not  take  pleasure  in  the  one  or  the  other."  ^ 

The  poetics  of  the  Cinquecento  thus  inherited, 
in  theoretical  form,  a  defence  of  classical  poetry 
against  the  charges  of  paganism  and  immorality, 
a  defence  of  the  study  of  letters  against  the  charges 
of  effeminacy  and  practical  uselessness,  a  defence 
of  classical  literature  as  an  educative  and  refining 

1  Cf.  the  tenzone  between  Sordello  and  Bertran  d'Alamanon, 
in  C.  de  Lollis,  Vita  e  poesie  dl  Sordello,  Halle,  1896,  p.  174. 
The  formal  treatises  on  love  during  the  Cinquecento  are  also  not 
without  interest  for  the  history  of  criticism  and  poetic  theory. 
Thus,  for  example,  Equicola,  in  his  Libro  di  natura  d'  ar.iore, 
discusses  at  some  length  the  treatment  of  love  in  classical,  Tus- 
cau,  French,  Proven9al,  and  Spanish  poetry  —  an  early  example 
of  comparative  criticism. 

2  Cf.  Einstein,  Italian  Renaissance  in  England,  New  York, 
1902,  p.  93, 


316  ,     CONCLUSION 

force,  a  defence  of  literary  study  in  general,  not  as 
mere  humanistic  erudition,  but  as  an  accomplish- 
ment of  gentlemen  and  courtiers,  as  an  element  in 
general  culture.  Moreover,  the  defence  of  the 
vernacular,  tentatively  begun  in  Dante's  De  Vulgari 
Eloquentia,  was  carried  on  to  final  victory  by  Bembo 
and  his  school,  and  the  discussion  was  continued 
by  a  host  of  ardent  advocates,  such  as  Varchi  and 
Muzio  in  Italy,  Du  Bellay  and  Henri  Estienne  in 
France,  Juan  de  Valdes  in  Spain,  and  Cheke,  As- 
cham,  and  Mulcaster  in  England. 

Poetic  theory  had  thus  far  been  chiefly  nourished 
upon  the  rhetorical  and  oratorical  treatises  of  Cicero, 
the  moral  treatises  of  Plutarch  (especially  those 
upon  the  reading  of  poets  and  the  education  of 
youth),  the  Institutiones  Oratorice  of  Quintilian,  and 
the  De  Legendis  Gentilmm  Libris^  of  Basil  the 
Great.  To  these  a  vast  body  of  classical  criticism 
was  added  by  the  sixteenth  century.  Aldus,  in 
1503,  published  the  works  of  the  chief  Greek 
rhetoricians.  Giulio  Cammillo  elucidated  Heruio- 
genes ;  Robortelli,  Longinus  ;  and  commentaries  on 
the  Ars  Poetica  of  Horace  appeared  in  great  num- 
ber. But  the  diffusion  of  Aristotle's  Poetics  was 
central  in  developing  poetic  theory  and  in  furnish- 
ing a  standard  of  judgment  in  criticism;  and  the 

1  This  work  was  very  popnl.ir  amon  j;  the  humanists.  It,  was 
translated  into  Latin  by  Leonardo  Bruni  about  140.5  (c/.  Coluccio 
Salutati,  Epistola,  iu  Scelta  di  CurloHlta  letterarie,  18(i7,  Ixxx, 
221),  and  is  cited,  e.g.,  by  Toscanella  (Miilhier,  op.  cit.,  p.  I'M) 
and  iEneas  Sylvius  (Opera,  Basile;p,  l.^Tl,  p.  98^).  Vivas,  as 
late  as  15151,  seems  to  rate  it  higher  than  Aristotle's  Poetics 
(Opera,  vi.  3i2). 


CONCLUSION  317 

outgrowth  of  the  older  humanistic  heritage  and  of 
these  new  Aristotelian  studies  was  that  unified 
body  of  doctrine  which  may  be  summed  up  in 
the  phrase  "  Renaissance  poetics."  The  outworn 
criteria  of  doctrina  and  eloquentia,  by  which  the 
humanists  had  tested  all  literary  endeavor,  were 
superseded  by  a  thousand  new  ones,  —  probability, 
verisimilitude,  unity,  the  fixed  norm  for  each  lit- 
erary genre,  and  the  like.  Viewed  from  the.  stand- 
point of  European  criticism  as  a  whole  —  for  the 
same  transformation  was  effected,  not  only  in  Italy, 
but  in  all  the  transalpine  countries  as  well  —  the 
development  may  be  summed  up  by  saying  that  the 
ideal  of  classical  imitation  was  merged  into  that  of 
neo-classical  rules.  Ijnitation  had  been  followed 
by  theory,  and  theory  by  law. 

The  immediate  problem  of  criticism  was  the 
application  of  this  body  of  poetic  theory  to  the 
body  of  creative  literature,  past  and  present.  This 
was  largely  assisted  by  the  literary  controversies 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  such  as  those  concerned 
with  the  Orlando  Furioso,  the  Gerasalemme  Liberata, 
the  Orbecche,  the  Divina  Commedia,  the  Pastor  Fido. 
Even  the  personal  polemics  of  the  time  —  such  as 
those  of  Caro  and  Castelvetro,  Sigonio  and  Eobor- 
telli,  Giraldi  Cintio  and  Pigna,  Aretino  and  Franco, 
Dolce  and  Ruscelli,  Domenichi  and  Doni  —  were 
not  wholly  unfruitful  in  this  respect.  Poetic  theory 
even  entered  the  field  of  linguistic  controversy,  and 
so,  for  example,  Varchi's  distinction  between  the 
versifier  and  the  poet  in  the  Ercolano  -^  is  combated 
1  B.  Varchi,  Opere,  Trieste,  1859,  ii.  150. 


318  CONCLUSION 

by  Castelvetro  in  his  answer  to  Varchi's  dialogue.' 
No  field  of  intellectual  interest  was  untouched  by 
it;  it  enriched  the  philosophic  systems  of  Telesio, 
Campanella,  and  Bacon,  among  many  others,  and 
these  show  the  century's  advance  in  comparison 
with  the  paucity  or  confusion  of  ideas  in  regard 
to  poetry  in  the  earlier  work  of  a  Savonarola  or 
a  Vives. 

The  Italian  academies  swarmed  with  lecturers  who 
elucidated  verses  of  Petrarch,  Bembo,  Dante,  Ariosto, 
Tasso,  and  the  like ;  and  though  these  academic  dis- 
courses were  for  the  most  part  trivial  and  futile, 
and  chiefly  concerned  with  the  interpretation  of 
external  details,  yet  they  could  not  fail  to  assist,  in 
some  measure,  the  assimilation  of  poetic  theory, 
and,  more  important  still,  to  foster  (let  us  hope) 
that  criticism  which  has  its  eyes  directly  on  the 
poet's  page.  Of  these  the  most  characteristic  are 
the  lezioni  (delivered  before  the  Florentine  and 
Paduan  academies)  and  the  minor  treatises  of  Bene- 
detto Varchi,  who  is  in  some  respects  the  repre- 
sentative critic  of  the  mid-Cinquecento.  A  master 
of  poetic  theory,  he  has  also  ideas  of  his  own  on 
the  method  and  scope  of  criticism  itself.  In  writing 
of  critical  prolegomena,  "not  only  for  works  of 
philosophers,  but  of  all  other  writers,  both  in  prose 
and  in  verse,"  he  discusses  seventeen  points,  some 
absolutely  necessary,  others  merely  useful,  which 
should  be  considered  in  the  preliminary  interpre- 
tation of  any  book :  the  name  and  the  life  of  the 
author,  the  title  of  the  book,  whether  it  is  legiti- 
1  Varchi,  Opere,  1859,  ii.  217. 


CONCLUSION  319 

mate  or  not,  its  aim,  its  subject,  its  instrument,  its 
office,  its  utility,  its  divisions,  the  order  of  tlie 
parts,  under  what  form  of  philosophy  it  falls,  its 
method  of  teaching,  its  proportion,  its  mode  of 
language,  and  the  like.^  These  are  all  concerned 
with  externals ;  all,  or  nearly  all,  avoid  or  ignore 
the  consideration  of  literature  on  its  purely  aesthetic 
side.  Yet  these,  after  all,  are  mere  preliminaries ; 
with  what  shall  we  concern  ourselves,  when  we 
come  to  the  work  itself  ?  Varchi  tells  us,  in  a 
brief  but  important  fragment,  Qaalitd  die  si  ricer- 
cano  negli  scrittori  e  negli  scritti;'^  and  these  quali- 
ties are  four :  ethical  quality  (boutci)  and  philosophic 
soundness  (dottrina),  with  regard  to  the  content  of 
literature;  eloquence  (eloquenza)  and  art  (arte),  with 
regard  to  its  treatment.  Of  these,  says  Varchi,  the 
two  first  are  nobler  than  the  two  last,  since  they 
deal  with  things  as  the  latter  do  with  words;  the 
former  give  literature  its  instructive  value,  the 
latter  its  pleasure.  But  bontd,  and  dottrina  alone 
do  not  suffice,  for  the  reason  that  all  things  are 
composed  of  form,  which  is  the  nobler  part,  and  of 
matter,  the  less  noble;  and  this  form  is  given  to 
literature  by  art,  which  in  a  sense  also  includes 
eloquence,  and  which  alone  tests  the  genius  and 
judgment  of  a  writer.  Here,  obviously,  we  are 
listening  once  more  to  the  old  humanistic  catch- 
words, doctrina  and  eloquentia,  matter  and  form, 
words  and  things,  profit  and  pleasure,  —  remnants 
of  classical  phrase  or  mediaeval  jargon;  we  still  feel 
the  humanistic  pedantry  and  formalism  of  the 
1  Varchi,  Opere,  ii.  806.  2  jfjia,  a.  813. 


320  CONCLUSION 

Quattrocento,  the  older  scholastic  interest  in  the 
subtleties  of  definition. 

This  may  perhaps  appear  more  clearly  when  we 
consider  how  Varchi  has  put  his  ideas  into  practice. 
It  is  a  favorite  practice  of  his  to  use  a  few  verses 
as  the  text  of  a  philosophic  discourse;  a  sonnet  of 
Delia  Casa,  for  example,  furnishes  the  pretext  for  a 
lecture  on  jealousy.^  But  his-  critical  method  may 
best  be  illustrated  by  the  eight  lectures  on  the  canzoni 
degli  occhi  of  Petrarch,  read  privately  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Florence  during  the  spring  of  1545.^  In  the 
first  of  these  he  follows  in  general  the  method  he 
himself  had  laid  down  for  all  preliminary  discussion. 
He  concerns  himself  with  six  points:  first,  the 
genus  to  which  the  three  canzoni  belong,  which,  as 
he  decides,  is  that  species  of  rhetoric  called  ''de- 
monstrative or  laudative ;  "  secondly,  the  style  of  the 
poems,  which  is  neither  high  nor  low,  but  in  the 
first  bassamente  mezzano,  in  the  second  mediocre- 
mente  mezzano,  in  the  third  altamente  mezzano ; 
thirdly,  the  species  or  sort  of  poetry  to  which  they 
belong,  which  is  "lyrical,"  so  called  because  origi- 
nally intended  to  be  sung  to  the  lyre,  "exegetic  or 
narrative,"  because  the  poet  speaks  in  his  own  per- 
son, and  "mixed,"  because  the  versification  is  in 
part  regulated  and  in  part  free ;  fourthly,  their 
subject  and  aim,  the  subject  being  "natural,"  or 
concerned   with    the   things    of   nature,    and    the 

1  Varchi,  Opere,  ii.  570.  This  lezione  was  translated  into 
English  in  1015  by  Robert  Tofte,  under  the  title  of  The  Iilazo)i 
of  Jcalousie,  with  intiH-esting  marginal  illustrations  from  con- 
temporary Engli.sh  poetry. 

2  Op.  cit.  ii.  439. 


CONCLUSION  321 

poet's  aim  is  to  give  praise  and  fame  to  Madonna 
Laura;  fifthly,  their  similarities  and  dissimilarities; 
and,  lastly,  their  structural  dependence  on  one 
another. 

All  this  scarcely  touches  the  problem  of  true 
criticism,  but  in  the  succeeding  lectures  Varchi 
treats  of  the  canzoni  at  closer  range.  His  method 
is  to  consider  one  stanza  after  another,  and  to 
discuss  its  parts  minutely.  Thus,  on  the  opening 
lines  — 

"Perchfe  la  vita  6  breve, 
E  I'ingegno  paventa  all'  alta  impresa,"  etc.,  — 

after  pointing  out  that  the  poet  here  states  his 
theme,  he  proceeds  to  make  such  comments  as 
these : 

"ia  vita,  i.e.  the  space  of  human  existence;  e  breve, 
i.e.  short;  e  Vingegno,  i.e.  my  own;  paventa,  fears  and 
trembles ;  alV  alta  impresa,  i.e.  considering  the  height  of 
the  subject,  and  how  difficult  it  is  to  attempt  praise  of 
such  beautiful  eyes."  ^ 

Or  on  the  verses  — 

' '  Quel  che  pensier  non  pareggia, 
Non  che  I'agguagli  altrui  parlar,  o  mio  "  — 

he  comments : 

"  That  is,  the  beautiful  eyes  of  Madonna  Laura ;  nor  could 
a  diviner  circumlocution  be  used,  nor  expressed  in  lovelier 
words  and  more  suitable  terms ;  for  parlar,  which  is  a  verb, 
coiTesponds  with  pensier,  which  is  a  noun,  the  present 
subjunctive  agguagli  with  the  present  indicative  pareggia, 
and  mio  with  altrui.  All  this,  we  must  believe,  really  indi- 
cates that  things  must  be  placed  first,  then  conceits  or 
thoughts  ...  in   the    third    place   words    or  terms    .   .   . 

Y  i  Varchi,  op.  cit.  ii.  44(j. 


322  CONCLUSION 

and  lastly,  writing  .   .  .  since  things  are  much  truer  than 
thoughts,  thoughts  than  words,  words  than  writing."  ^ 

It  is  inconceivable  that  such  puerile  interpretation 
could  illuminate  the  text  of  Petrarch,  or  advance 
the  cause  of  criticism;  but  beyond  these  verbal 
comments  and  scholastic  distinctions  Varchi,  in 
these  Petrarchan  discourses,  does  not  attempt  to  go.^ 
Yet  these  lectures,  it  must  be  remembered,  were 
delivered  three  or  four  years  before  the  outburst  of 
interest  in  Aristotle's  Poetics  occasioned  by  the 
commentaries  of  Robortelli  (1548)  and  Maggi  (1550) 
and  the  Italian  translation  of  Segni  (1549);  they 
antedate  his  own  lectures  on  the  theory  of  poetry 
by  eight  years.  In  order  to  comprehend  clearly 
what  the  poetics  of  the  Renaissance  accomplished 
for  criticism  in  a  brief  period  of  time,  these  lectures 
of  1553  have  but  to  be  compared  with  those  of  1545. 
In  the  treatment  of  the  lyric,  the  Cinquecento, 
being  without  the  guidance  of  those  definite  theories 
and  fixed  laws  which  had  been  elaborated  for 
dramatic  and  epic  poetry,  lost  itself  in  details  and 
pedantries.  The  old  scholastic  subtleties  still 
follow  Varchi  in  his  discourse  on  **  Poetics  in  Gen- 
eral" and  in  the  five  on  "Poetry,"  to  which  I  have 

1  Varchi,  op.  cit.  ii.  448. 

2  The  following  curious  comment  on  these  lezioni,  to  be 
found  iu  one  of  Alfonso  de'  Pazzi's  sonnets  against  Varchi 
(reprinted  in  the  Terzo  libro  dell'  opere  burlesdie,  17G0,  p.  338), 
is  not  without  some  justification :  — 

"  Le  canzoni  degli  occhi  ha  letto  il  Varchi, 
Ed  ha  cavato  al  gran  Petrarca  gli  occhi." 

Cf.  Graf,  AtLraverso  il  Cinquecento,  Turin,  1888,  pp.  'JO,  64. 


CONCLUSION  323 

already  given  ample  attention;^  but  a  surer  touch, 
a  new  attitude  toward  his  material,  indicate  that  a 
change  of  some  sort  had  come.  In  one  of  these 
lectures,  after  stating  that  the  Giron  Cortese  of 
Alamanni  pleases  him  more  than  the  Orlando 
Furioso  (and  a  judgment  so  astounding  must  be 
taken  into  consideration  when  defining  his  position 
as  a  critic),  he  says : 

"  To  few,  and  perhaps  to  none,  is  it  permitted  to  aflQrm: 
This  or  tliat  man  has  erred,  this  or  that  thing  is  bad. 
Every  one  can  say,  many  should  indeed  say  :  It  seems  to  me 
that  this  or  that  man  has  erred,  this  or  that  thing  does  not 
seem  to  me  good.  It  is  conceded  to  every  one  to  say  :  The 
figures  of  this  or  that  sculptor  or  painter  do  not  please  me ; 
but  to  very  few  indeed  is  it  conceded  to  affirm:  These 
figures  are  not  good."  2 

This,  in  another  form,  is  the  old  concept  of  the 
diversity  de  gustibus,  but  it  is  important  as  showing 
that  theory  had  as  yet  not  been  crystallized  into 
dogma.  The  orthodox  neo-classic  criticism,  having 
transformed  into  laws  the  proper  pleasure  to  be 
derived  from  each  literary  genre,  was  shaken  by  no 
such  doubts.  But  early  in  the  eighteenth  century 
Marivaux  gave  expression  to  a  point  of  view  very 
much  akin  to  that  of  Varchi.  The  critics  of  his 
day,  according  to  Marivaux,  might  assert  of  a  work 
of  art,  "That  is  worthless,  that  is  detestable;"  but 
such  reasoning  is  itself  worthless  and  detestable, 
since  a  man  of  taste  may  say  of  a  book,  "It  does 
not  please  me,"  but  "  he  will  never  decide  that  it 
is  bad  until  after  he  has  compared  his  own  ideas 

^  Supra,  pp.  25,  34,  41,  50,  etc. 
2  Opere,  11.  691. 


324  CONCLUSION 

with  those  of  others."^  Here  the  doubt  as  to 
whether  the  code  of  poetics  can  afford  the  individual 
critic  a  fixed  standard  of  judgment  is  a  sign  that 
the  neo-classic  structure  is  beginning  to  crumble; 
for  it  is  upon  the  development  of  this  very  concept 
that  criticism  expended  its  chief  effort  in  the  cen- 
tury and  three-quarters  that  separate  Varchi  from 
Marivaux. 

The  development  in  this  respect  is  indicated  in 
a  lecture  by  Torquato  Tasso  on  a  sonnet  of  Delia 
Casa,  delivered  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century 
later  before  the  Ferrarese  Academy.^  The  method 
of  Varchi's  Petrarchan  discourses  is  here  followed, 
in  first  considering  the  style  in  which  the  sonnet 
is  written,  and  then  elucidating  its  various  parts; 
though  Varchi's  jejune  formulae  of  the  high,  me- 
diocre, and  low  styles  are  superseded  by  a  more 
philosophical  discussion  of  poetic  style,  based  on 
the  theories  of  Hermogenes,  Demetrius  Phalereus, 
and  Cicero,  and  the  puerile  verbal  exposition  of 
Varchi  gives  place  to  a  method  that  is  not  exclu- 
sively expository,  but  is  based  on  Tasso's  juster 
conception  of  the  function  of  criticism.  At  the 
very  outset  he  defines  his  position  by  contrasting 
the  method  of  imitation,  which  judges  works  of  art 
merely  by  their  similarity  or  dissimilarity  to  some 
masterpiece  in  the  same  kind,  and  the  method  of 
art,  whose  higher  function  it  is 

"to  investigate  the  reasons  why  this  verse  seems  sweet,  this 
one  harsh ;   this  one  humble  and  plebeian,  this  one  noble 

1 G.  Larroumet,  Marivaux,  sa  vie  et  ses  oeuvres,  Paris,  1S94, 
p.  448.  2 Tasso,  Opere,  ed.  Rosiui,  xi.  42  sq. 


CONCLUSION  325 

and  magnificent ;  this  one  too  careless,  this  one  too  highly- 
colored  ;  this  one  cold,  this  one  bombastic,  this  one  insipid  ; 
why  here  the  movement  and  speed  of  the  speech  are  praised, 
here  the  slowness  and  delay;  here  direct  speech,  here  indi- 
rect ;  here  the  long  period,  here  the  short ;  and,  in  a  word, 
why  compositions  please  or  displease :  and  having  found  the 
reasons  of  all  these  things,  there  form  in  the  mind  some 
that  are  universal,  true,  and  infallible,  gathered  from  the 
experience  of  many  particulars  ;  and  it  is  the  knowledge  of 
these  which  Art  more  properly  demands  for  itself." 

Why  works  of  art  please  or  displease!  the  univer- 
sal and  infallible  grounds  of  our  pleasure  and  dis- 
pleasure!—  here  are  problems  beyond  the  scope  of 
Varchi's  tentative  and  empirical  method;  here  is  a 
significant  advance  over  Varchi's  assumption  of  the 
individual  basis  of  the  pleasure  or  displeasure  which 
poetry  gives.  Yet  Tasso's  own  method  is  a  com- 
promise between  the  two  which  he  defines;  the 
method  of  imitation  and  that  of  art  are  alike 
necessary  to  the  critic. 

Here  criticism  is  beginning  to  turn  eyes  upon 
itself,  leaping  from  the  two  questions  which  had 
interested  it  most  in  the  sixteenth  century,  "  What 
is  poetry  ? "  and  "  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  or 
that  poem  ? "  to  a  third  question,  which  it  but 
vaguely  apprehended :  "  What  is  criticism  ?  "  To 
say  that  this  question  was  first  neatly  put  and  defi- 
nitely discussed  in  the  seventeenth  century  is  to 
say  that  not  until  then  did  criticism  become  a  self- 
conscious  and  organized  art;  and  it  is  characteristic 
of  this  change  of  attitude  that,  while  Horace  and 
Vida  had  written  "Arts  of  Poetry,"  it  is  literally 
an  "  Essay  on  Criticism  "  upon  which  Pope  expended 


326  CONCLUSION 

a  kindred  poetic  skill.  Writing  some  forty  years 
after  Boileau,  he  substituted  a  brief  sketch  of  the 
history  of  criticism  from  Aristotle  to  Roscommon 
for  the  rapid  survey  of  French  poetry  in  the  Art 
Poetique. 

This  new  organization  of  critical  method  and 
critical  theory  was  developed  on  the  basis  of  Re- 
naissance poetics.  The  body  of  rules  and  theories 
was  the  same,  but  the  attitude  toward  them  was 
gradually  changing;  and  the  history  of  this  attitude 
gives  us  the  history  of  criticism  in  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century  the  intellectual  ferment  in 
Italy  and  Spain  developed  new  theories  of  style, 
based  on  the  rhetorical  discussions  of  classical  antiq- 
uity and  the  Renaissance.  It  was  this  ferment  of 
thought  which  produced  the  ideal  of  "  wit "  which 
was  derived  through  the  French  espi-it  from  the 
Italian  ingegno.  A  new  terminology  was  being 
created,  indicative  of  a  change  of  interest  from  the 
materials  of  literature  to  the  moods  and  faculties  of 
the  creative  mind.  Words  like  "  fancy,"  "  judg- 
ment," "  wit,"  "  humor,"  "  taste,"  "  the  sublime," 
were  acquiring  new  meaning  and  a  higher  vogue. 
But  the  rationalism  of  the  classic  spirit  throttled 
this  initial  outburst,  and  it  was  not  till  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century  that  the  human  mind, 
rather  than  literature  itself,  was  systematically 
studied  for  the  development  of  principles  of  criti- 
cism. Tasso,  as  we  have  seen,  propounded  the  vital 
problem  why  poetry  is  pleasing  to  the  human  mind, 
but  he  attempts  to  find  the  answer  in  poetry  itself. 


CONCLUSION  327 

With  the  growth  of  the  rationalistic  spirit  the 
main  interest  of  criticism  was  in  fixing  a  reasonable 
standard  of  critical  judgment.  "  Criticism,  as  it 
was  first  instituted  by  Aristotle,"  says  Dr'yden, 
"was  meant  a  standard  of  judging  well;  the  chief- 
est  part  of  which  is  to  observe  those  excellences 
which  should  delight  a  reasonable  reader."^  This 
is  no  longer  Tasso's  problem  why  certain  excel- 
lences please;  there  are  in  poetry  excellences  which 
ought  to  please  the  reasonable  reader.  La  Bruyere 
goes  still  farther  in  asserting  that  for  every  reader 
there  is  one  absolute  standard  of  taste : 

"  There  is  a  point  of  perfection  in  art,  as  of  excellence  or 
maturity  in  nature.  He  who  is  sensible  of  it  and  loves  it  has 
perfect  taste ;  he  who  is  not  sensible  of  it  and  loves  this  or 
that  else  on  either  side  of  it  has  a  faulty  taste.  There  is 
then  a  good  and  bad  taste,  and  men  dispute  of  tastes  not 
without  reason."  ^ 

Dryden's  standard  of  judgment  and  La  Bruyere's 
standard  of  taste  are  both  the  result  of  the  appli- 
cation of  reason  to  aesthetic  pleasure.  Yet  the  de- 
velopment of  the  ideal  of  taste  ^  was  dangerous  to 
the  rigid  spirit  of  classicism.  The  recognition  of 
the  subjective  basis  of  taste  soon  led  to  a  contrast 

1  Works,  ed.  Scott-Saintsbury,  v.  112. 

2  Caracteres,  "Des  ouvrages  de  I'esprit."  Cf.  Shaftesbury, 
Characteristicks,  London,  1711,  iii.  154,  156. 

3  On  the  early  history  of  the  term  "  taste  "  cf.  Croce,  Estetica, 
p.  194  sq.;  Borinski,  Poetik  der  Renaissance,  p.  308  sq.; 
Baltasar  Gracian  und  die  Hoflitteratur,  p.  39  sq. ;  and  Fari- 
nelli's  valuable  review  of  the  last  in  the  Revista  critica  de 
historia  y  literatura  espaholas,  vol.  ii.,  1896.  Cf.,  however, 
Addison,  Spectator,  No.  409,  June  19,  1712,  where  Gracian's 
priority  in  the  use  of  the  term  is  accepted. 


328  CONCLUSION 

with  those  neo-classic  rules  which  constituted  the 
external  element  in  art.  Pope  recognized  that  taste 
might  give  a  grace  beyond  the  reach  of  art;  the 
concept  of  the  je  ne  sais  quoi^  was  formulated, 
to  comprehend  these  elements  of  aesthetic  pleasure 
not  explicable  by  the  rules  of  Renaissance  poetics ; 
and  finally,  Montesquieu,  in  his  Essai  sur  le  Goid, 
says  that 

"art  gives  the  rules,  and  taste  the  exceptions ;  taste  discovers 
on  what  occasions  art  should  submit  to  it,  and  on  what 
occasions  it  should  submit  to  art."  ^ 

It  is  natural  to  find,  side  by  side  with  this  evo- 
lution, a  kindred  development  of  interest  in  the 
subjective  processes  of  art.^     Montesquieu  himself 

1  This  phrase  had  been  employed  as  early  as  the  sixteenth 
century,  both  in  Italy  and  in  France.  Tasso  uses  it,  and 
Mile,  de  Gournay,  the  fille  d'alliance  of  Montaigne,  speaks  of 
"  Tamour,  qui  est  je  ne  s^ai  quoy,  doit  sourdre  aussi  de  je  ne 
SQai  quoy"  (Doncieux,  Bouhours,  pp.  264,  265).  Bouhours 
established  its  use  in  criticism  in  the  seventeenth  centurj-,  and 
was  followed  in  the  eighteenth  by  Marivaux,  Montesquieu, 
Feijdo,  and  a  host  of  others  (c/.  Croce,  Estetica,  p.  205  sq.; 
Larroumet,  Marivaux,  p.  498  sq.).  From  the  time  of  Shaftes- 
bury {Characteristicks,  i.  147,  etc.)  it  was  also  naturalized  in 
England. 

2  (Euvres  completes,  Paris,  1834,  p.  596. 

3  John  Morley  {Burke,  p.  19)  gives  to  Burke's  essay  On  the 
Sublime  and  Beautiful  the  credit  of  having  first  established  the 
principle  "  that  critics  of  art  seek  its  principles  in  the  wrong 
place,  so  long  as  they  limit  their  search  to  poems,  pictures, 
engravings,  statues,  and  buildings,  instead  of  first  arranging 
the  sentiments  and  faculties  in  man  to  which  art  makes  its 
appeal;"  but  this  contention,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  s.ay, 
ignores  a  long  line  of  antecedent  speculations  on  the  continent 
and  even  in  England. 


CONCLUSION  329 

complains  that  the  ancients  regarded  as  positive 
qualities  all  the  relative  qualities  of  the  soul;  the 
Platonic  dialogues  are  absurd,  since  they  deal  with 
the  good,  the  beautiful,  the  agreeable,  and  the  like, 
as  positive  realities : 

"  The  sources  of  the  beautiful,  the  good,  the  agreeable,  etc., 
are  in  ourselves,  and  to  seek  for  their  reasons  is  merely  to 
seek  for  the  causes  of  the  pleasures  of  our  soul.  Let  us  ex- 
amine then  our  soul,  let  us  study  it  in  its  actions  and  its 
passions.  Poetry,  painting,  sculpture,  architecture,  music, 
the  dance,  in  fine,  the  works  of  nature  and  of  art,  can  give 
pleasure  to  the  soul ;  let  us  see  why,  how,  and  when  they 
do  so."  1 

The  new  science  of  aesthetics  was  to  attempt,  and  in 
a  sense  to  solve,  this  new  problem;  the  romantic 
movement  was  to  apply  the  fruits  of  those  labors  to 
literature  and  to  literary  criticism. 

The  attitude  toward  the  body  of  Renaissance 
poetics  had  thus,  during  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries,  undergone  a  complete  trans- 
formation. In  the  Renaissance  itself,  the  human- 
istic period,  with  its  ideal  of  classical  imitation, 
was  followed  by  a  period  of  theorizing  along  the 
lines  of  the  Aristotelian  Poetics,  and  the  results 
were  before  long  hardened  into  fixed  rules  and 
dogmas  of  criticism.  The  neo-classical  period  re- 
garded these  rules,  first  from  the  attitude  of  '-wit," 
then  of  reason,  and  finally  of  taste.  When  Hobbes, 
in  the  address  prefixed  to  his  translation  of  the 
Iliad  (1675),  says  that  "there  be  many  men  called 
'  critics,  and  wits,  and  virtuosi,  that  are  accustomed  to 

1  (Euvres  completes,  p.  587,  and  note. 


330  CONCLUSION 

censure  the  poets,"  ^  he  has  indicated  the  three 
classes  of  litterateurs  who  were  to  carry  on  these 
three  phases  of  critical  activity. 

Imitation,  theory,  law ;  wit,  reason,  taste,  —  each 
in  its  turn  became  a  guiding  principle  of  criticism, 
until  with  the  romantic  movement  all  were  super- 
seded by  the  concept  of  the  creative  imagination. 
The  first  three  represent,  as  it  were,  the  stages 
through  which  Renaissance  poetics  passed  in  the 
process  of  complete  codification;  the  last  three 
represent  the  stages  of  its  decline  and  death. 

1  Spingam,  Critical  Essays  of  the  Seventeenth  Century,  Ox- 
ford, 1908,  ii.  68;  c/.  i.  p.  xc  sq. 


APPENDICES 


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APPENDIX  B 

SALVIATI'S    ACCOUNT    OF    THE    COMIMENTA- 
TORS  ON  ARISTOTLE'S  "POETICS." 

The  following  is  Lionardo  Salviati's  account  of  the 
commentators  on  Aristotle's  Poetics  up  to  1586.  The 
passage  is  cited  from  an  unpublished  Ms.  at  Florence 
(Cod.  Magliabech.  ii.  ii.  II.),  beginning  at  fol.  371.  The 
title  of  the  Ms.  is  Parafrasi  e  Commento  della  Poetica 
d'Aristotile;  and  at  fol.  370  it  is  dated  January  28,  1586. 

BELLI     INTERPRETI     DI     QUESTO    LIBRO 
DELLA     POETICA 

Averroe  primo  di  tutti  quelli  interpreti  della  Poetica 

che  a  nostri  tempi  sono  pervenuti,  fece  intorno  a  esso  una 

breve  Parafrasi,  neUa  quale  come  che  pure 

alcune    buone    considerationi   si  ritrovino, 

tutta  via  per  la  diversity  e  lontananza  de  costumi,  che  tra 

greco   havea,  e   tra   gli   arabi  poca  notizia    havendone, 

pochissima  ne  pote  dare  altrui.     Appresso  hebbe  voglia 

Giorgio  Valla  di  tradur    questo  libro    in 

latino,  ma  o  che  la  copia  del  testo  greco  lo 

ingannasse,  o  che  verso  di  se  f  usse  1'  opera  malagevole  per 

ogni  guisa  massimamente  in  quel  tempi,  egli  di  quella 

impresa  picciola  lode  si  guadagno.     II  che  considerando 

poi  Alessandro  de  Pazzi,  huomo  delle  lingue 
PezzI. 

intendente,  et  ingeguoso  molto,  alia  niede- 

sima  cura  si  diede,  et  ci  lascio  la  latina  traduzzioue,  che 
334 


APPENDIX   B  335 

in  tutti  i  latini  comenti  fuorch'  in  quelle  del  Vettorio 

si  leggie.     E  per  cio  che  dotto   huomo  era,  et  hebbe 

copia  di  ottimi  testi  scritti  a  penna,  diede  non  poca  liice 

a  questa  opera,  e  piii  anche  fatto  havrebbe  se  da  la  morte 

stato  non  fusse  sopravenuto.    Ma  Francesco  Rubertello  a 

_,       „.     tempi  nostri,  nelli  studi  delle  lingue  esercita- 
Robortelli.    ^.    .^  -,;,.. 

tissimo,  conoscendo  che  di  maggior  aviso 

li  faceva  mestieri,  non  solamente  purgo  il  testo  di  molte 
macchie  che  accecato  il  tenevano,  ma  il  primo  fu  ancora, 
che  con  distese  dichiarationi,  et  con  innumerabili  esempli 
di  poeti  greci  e  latini,  fece  opera  di  illus- 
trarlo.     Vulgarizzollo    appresso    Bernardo 
Segni  in  questo  nostro  Idioma,  et  con  alcune  sue  brevi 
annotationi  lo   diede   in  luce.      E  nella  tradutione  per 
alcune  proprie  voci  che  ai  greci  vocaboli  ottimamente  cor- 
risposero,  non  se  n'  usci  anche  egli  senza  commendazione. 
Ma  con  molto  maggior  grido  et  applauso,  il  comento  del 
.        Maggio,  chiarissimo  filosopho,  f u  dal  mondo 
ricevuto ;  percioche  havendo  egli  con  somma 
gloria  nella  continua  lettura  della  Philosophia  i  suoi  anni 
trapassati,  con  1'  ordine  principalmente  giovo  a  questo 
libro,  e  col  mostrarne  la  continuatione  et  in  non  pochi 
luoghi  soccorse  il  Rubertello.      E  se  si  fusse  alquanto 
meno  ardente  contro  di  lui  dimonstrato,   ne  cosi  vago 
stato  fusse  di  contrapporseli,  sarebbe   alcuna  volta  per 
awentura  uscito  fuor  piii  libero  il  parer  suo,  e  piii  saldo.  A 
lato  a  quel  del  Maggio  fu  la  latin  a  traduzione  et  comento 
di  Pier  Vettori  pubblicato,  il  quale  essendo 
oltre  ad  ogni  altro,  delle  antiche  scritoure 
diligentissimo  osservatore,  e  nella  cognitione  delle  lingue 
havendosi  si  come  io  stimo  a  tempi  nostri,  il  primo  luogo 
guadagnato,   hauta   commodity,   et   in   gran   numero  di 
preziosi  et  antichi  esemplarj  scritti  a  mano,  in  ogni  parte, 
ma  nella  correzzione  del  testo  spetialmente  e  nella  tra- 
duzione, ha  fatto  si  che  poco  piu  avanti  pare  che  di  lume  a 


336  APPENDIX  B 

q\iesto    libro  possa   desiderarsi.      Fu  non   di   manco   a 

^    ^  ,    >        qiiesti  anni  di  niiovo  da  un  dotto  huomo  in 
Castelvetro.   ^ 

questa  lingua  volgarizzato  et  esposto,  et  piu 

a  lungo  che  alcun  altro  che  cio  habbia  fin  qui  adoprato 

ancor  mai.    Questo  sara  da  me  per  tutto  ovnnque  mi  con- 

venga  nominarlo,  il  comento  vulgare  appellate,  e  per  piii 

brevita  con  quelle  due  prime  lettere  C.  V.  in  questa  guisa 

lo  noterb.     Nel  qual  comento  hanno  senza  alcun  fallo  di 

sottilissimi  avredimenti,  ma  potrebb'  essere,  si  come  io 

credo,  piii  sincero.     Percio  che  io  stimo,  che  dove  egli  dal 

vero  si  diparte,  il  faccia  per  emulazione  per  lo  piu  per 

dimostrarsi  di  sottil  sentimento  e  per  non  dire  come  li 

altri.     E  la  costui  tradutione,  fuorche  in  alcune  parti 

dove  egli  secondo  che  io  avviso  volontariamente  erra,  tra 

le  toscane  la  migliore.     E  sono  le  sue  parole  et  in  essa  e 

nell'  espositione  molto  pure,  et  in  puro  volgare  fiorentino, 

quanto  comporta  la  materia  1'  una  e  1'  altra  e  dettata. 

Ultimamente  la  traduzzione,  e  con  essa  1'  annotazione  di 

.  .    Mgr.  Alessandro  Piccolomini  sono  uscite  in 

stampa,  il  quale  havendosi  con  molte  altre 

sue  opere  d'  astrologia  e  di  filosofia  e  di  rettorica  parte  com- 

poste,  parte  volgarizzate,  non  picciol  nome  e  molta  ripu- 

tazione  acquistata,  creder  si  pub  altrettanto  doverli  della 

presente  faticha  avvenire.     Dietro  a  si  chiari  interpreti 

non  per  emulatione,  la  quale  tra  me  e  si  fatti  huomini 

_  ,  .    .       non  potrebbe  haver  luogo,  ma  per  vaghezza 
Salnati.        ,     .  ,  •    ,•   i 

che  10  pure  havrei  di  dover  ancor  lo,  se  lo 

potessi  a  questa  impresa,  alcun  aiuto   arrecare  dopo  lo 

studio  di  dieci  anni  che  io  ci  ho  spesi,  scendo,  quantunque 

timido,  in  questo  campo,  piu  con  accesa  voloutii,  che  con 

speranza,  o  vigore  desideroso  che  avanti  chevenirmi  gloria 

per  false  opinioni,  sieno  i  miei  difetti  discretamente  da 

savio  giudice  gastigati. 


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Schelling,  F.  E.     Poetic  and  Verse  Criticism  of  the  Reign 

of  Elizabeth.     Philadelphia,  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania Press,  1891. 
Solerti,  A.     Vita  di  Torquato  Tasso.    3  vols.    Torino,  1895. 
Symonds,  J.  A.    Renaissance  in  Italy.    7  vols.    New  York, 

1888. 
Teichmiiller,    G.      Aristotelische     Forschungen.      2    vols. 

HaUe,  1869. 
Tiraboschi,  G.     Storia  della  Letteratura  Italiana.     9  vols. 

Firenze,  1805-1813. 
Vossler,    K.       Poetische    Theorien    in    der    italienischen 

Frilhrenaissance .     Berlin,  1900. 
"  Pietro   Aretino's    kiiiistlerisches   Bekenntnis,"   in 

Neue  Heidelherger  Jahrbiicher,  1900,  vol.  x. 


For  further  bibliographical  information,  see  the  Italian 
translation  of  this  book  {La  Critica  letteraria  nel  Rinasci- 
mento,  traduzione  italiana  del  Dr.  Antonio  Fusco,  con  cor- 
rezzioni  e  aggiunte  dell'  autore  e  prefazione  di  B.  Croce, 
Bari,  1905,  pp.  337-347). 


INDEX 


Abu-Basehar,  16. 

Academie  de  Poe'sie  et  de  Mu- 

sique,  224,  300. 
Accademia  della  Crusca,  123. 
Aceademia  della  Nuova  Poesia, 

222,  224. 
Addison,  295. 
.Eschylus,  96. 
Agricola,  132. 

Agrippa,  Cornelius,  7,  273,  275. 
Alamanni,  Luigi,  222. 
Alberti,  Leon  Battista,  221. 
Alexander  of  Aphrodisias,  78. 
Ambrose  of  Milan,  7. 
Aneau,  Barthelemy,  182  53. 
Aphthonius,  27. 
Aquinas,  Thomas,  6,  15. 
Areopagus,  .300. 
Aretino,  106,  163. 
Ariosto,  109,  112  sq.,  115  sq., 

123,  162,  222,  293  sq. 
Aristophanes,  11. 
Aristotle,  passim,  especially  16 

sq.,  136  55.,  164  sq.,  183  sq., 

308    sq. ;    Poetics,  passim  ; 

Rhetoric,  86. 
Ascham,  254  sq.,  283 sq.,  298  sq., 

302  sq. ;  Scholemaster,  254. 
Aubignac,   Abbe   d',   210,  223, 

236,    245  sq.;    Pratique    du 

Thddtre,  210,  245. 
Averroes,  16,  24,  26. 

Bacon,  Francis,  276  sq.,  306; 

Advancement  of  Learning, 

276. 
Bacon,  Roger,  16. 
Baif,  J.  A.  de,  224  sq.,  298,  300. 


Baldini,  Ars  Poetica  Aristotelis, 

140. 
Balzac,  Guez  de,  139,  239  sq. 
Bartas,  Salluste  du,  130,  161, 

197,  227,  230. 
Beaubreuil,  Jean  de,  208. 
Bellay,   Joachim   du,  172  sq., 

182  sq.,  199  sq.,  210  sq. ;  De- 
fense   et    Illustration,    172, 

177  sq. 
Bembo,  117,  126,  153,  161,  180, 

255,  .305. 
Beni,  Paolo,  36,  92, 123, 140, 244. 
Bernays,  80. 
Berni,  Dialogo  contra  i  Poeti, 

9,  153. 
Baza,  230. 
Binet,  192,  219. 
Blackmore,  295. 
Blenerhasset,  Thomas,  299. 
Boccaccio,  8, 13, 16,  35, 165, 193, 

261 ;  -De  Genealogia  Deorum, 

9. 
Boccalini,  Ragguagli  di  Par- 

naso,  258. 
Boileau,   39,  48,  108,   130  sq., 

153,  208  sq.,  245  sq.,  286;  Art 

Po4tique,  108,  249. 
Bossuet,  7,  238. 
Bouteauville,  Michel  de,  22&. 
Breitinger,  H.,  90. 
Brunetiere,  93,  176. 
Bruni,    Lionardo,   10,   12;    De 

Studiis  et  Literis,  10. 
Bruno,  Giordano,  165  sq. 
Buchanan,  230. 
Budffius,  173,  310  n. 
Bullokar,  256. 


345 


346 


INDEX 


Buonamici,    Discorsi    Foetid, 

140,  167. 
Butcher,  S.  H.,  26  n.,  40,  64,  75. 

Calcagnini,  162  sq. 
Cammillo,  Giulio,  32,  176. 
Campanella,  26  sq. 
Campion,  Observations  in  the 

Art  of  English  Poesy,  297, 

304. 
Capriano,   83,   87,   120;   Delia 

Vera  Poeiica,  42,  211. 
Caro,  Annibal,  222. 
Cascales,  146. 
Castelvetro,  44  sq.,  55,  97  sg.,  c< 

passim. 
Castiglione,  103, 161,  180. 
Cavalcanti,  127. 
Cecchi,  106. 

Cervantes,  36, 104,  258  n.,  290  n. 
Chamberlayne,  295. 
Chapelain,  139,  186,  210,  239  sq. 
Cheke,  Sir  John,  254,  308. 
Chretien  Le  Gouais,  264. 
Cicero,  16,  30,  54,  104,  164,  178. 
Coleridge,  54,  56,  142. 
Corneille,  75,  84,  90,  101,  139, 

206,  210,  229,  245. 
Council  of  Trent,  15,  130,  142, 

160,  224,  268,  292. 
Coxe,  Leonard,  254. 
Cueva,  Juan  de  la,   146,  233, 

305;  Egemplar  Portico,  146, 

234. 

Dacier,  63,  70,  75. 

Daniel,  Defence  of  Rhyme,  257, 

297  «g.,  304. 
Daniello,  20,  28,  48,  61,  82,  137, 

196. 
Dante,  8,  16,  51,  66,  109,  138, 

180  sq. 
Dati,  Leonardo,  221. 
Davenant,  259,  295. 
Deimier,  216. 
Deuorea,  151. 


Descartes,  249. 

Deschamps,  Eustache,  174. 

Desportes,  237. 

Diomedes,  64  sq. 

Dolce,  Lodovico,  126, 171, 196. 

Dolet,  173,  227. 

Donatus,  104. 

Drant,  Thomas,  171,  300  sq. 

Dryden,  53,  75,  100,  142,  231, 

259,  295,  310. 
Duval,  227. 
Dyer,  300. 

Ellis,  Robinson,  301  sq. 
Equicola,  58,  127. 
Erasmus,  173, 184. 
Espinel,  171. 

Estienne,  Henri,  181,  217. 
Euanthius-Donatus,  65. 
Euripides,  284,  308. 

Fabri,  Pierre,  174  sq. 
Fabricius,  147,  305. 
Fanucci,  127. 
Farquhar,  292. 
Fichte,  157. 
Ficino,  160. 
Filelfo,  32,  136. 
Fioretti,  Benedetto,  167. 
Fleur  de  Rh^torique,  174. 
Fontaine,  Charles,  181  sq, 
Fracastoro,  22,  31  sq.,  40  sq., 

141,    157,    258;     Naugenus, 

31. 
Fulgentius,  7,  8. 

Gabrielli,  Trifone,  138. 
Gambara,  De  Perfecta  Poeseoa 

Ratione,  161. 
Gamier,  230. 
Gascoigne,  256,  301. 
Gelli,  106,  163. 
Giraldi  Cintio,  49, 62,  67,  76,  83, 

91,  110  sq.,  123.  138,  146,  162, 

211,  235,  284. 
Goldoui,  167. 


INDEX 


347 


Gosson,  7,  266  sq.,  273. 

Gracien  du  Pont,  174  sq. 

Great  Assises  holden  in  Par- 
nassus, 258,  310  n. 

Gregory  the  Great,  8. 

GrevUle,  Fulke,  300. 

Gre'vin,  201  sq.,  228,  232. 

Grynaeus,  184. 

Guarini,  Pastor  Fido,  164. 

Guarino,  De  Ordine  Docendi, 
10. 

Hardy,  Alexandre,  232,  235  sq. 
Harington,  275,  293,  305,  308; 

Apologie  of  Poetrie,  257,  275, 

293. 
Harvey,  Gabriel,  117, 255,299*5'., 

303  sq. 
Heinsius,  Daniel,  147,  185,  245, 

292;  De  Tragoedias  Constitu- 

tione,  245. 
Heliodorus,  36, 196. 
Hermann,  16. 

Hermogenes,  32 ;  Idea,  32. 
Hilary  of  Poitiers,  7. 
Hobbes,  103  n.,  259. 
Homer,  4,  6,  18,  et  passim. 
Horace,  11,  16,  et  passim;  Ars 

Poetica,  passim. 
Howard,  Sir  Robert,  292. 

Isidore  of  Seville,  5, 11,  65. 

James  VI.  of  Scotland,  262. 

Jodelle,  173,  206. 

Johannes  Januensis  de  Balbis, 

66. 
John  of  Salisbury,  11. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  79,  260. 
Jonson,  Ben,  54, 88  sq.,  104, 142, 

24G,  258,  278  sq.,  288  sq.,  297, 

.304  sq. 

La  Bruyere,  241,  248. 

Lamartine,  48. 

La  Mesnardiere,  245. 


Landi,  Ortensio,  164, 165 ;  Para- 

dossi,  164. 
Lasca,  II,  104, 106,  163. 
Laudun,  Pierre  de,  188, 204,221, 

233 ;  Art  Po4tique,  208. 
Le  Bossu,  246,  294. 
Lemoyne,  244. 
Leo  X.,  126, 154,  160. 
Le  Roy,  227. 

Lessing,  75,  79,  142,  147,  310. 
Lionardi,  AJessandro,  43, 127. 
Livy,  29,  37. 
Lodge,  Defence  of  Poetry,  Mii- 

sick,  and  Stage  Plays,  267. 
Lombardi,  138. 
Longfellow,  302. 
Lucan,  195,  275. 
Lucian,  35. 
Lucretius,  45. 
Luisino,  138. 
Luther,  147  n. 

Macrobius,  244. 

Maggi,  27,   49,    63,    78,   93,    et 

passhyi. 
Mairet,  210. 
Malherbe,  216, 220, 231, 236  sq.  ; 

Commentaire  sur  Desportes, 

237. 
Mambrun,  244,  246,  294. 
Mantinus  of  Tortosa,  16. 
Mantuan,  9. 
Maranta,  108, 146. 
Marguerite  de  Navarre,  227. 
Marino,  241. 
Marot,  175,  216,  238. 
Mascardi,  310  n. 
Maximus  of  Tyre,  6. 
Mazzoni,  Jacopo,  309:   Difesa 

di  Dante,  124  n. 
Melanchthon,  132,  254. 
Mellin    de    Saint-Gelais,    175, 

206. 
Menage,  241. 
Metastasio,  167. 
Michele,  A.,  36. 


348 


INDEX 


Milton,  54,  70  n.,  80  sq.,  142, 

147,  280,  287,  292,  308  sq. 
Minturno,  21, 52, 269,  et  passim; 

Arte  Poetica,  119 ;  De  Poeta, 

21. 
Mirandola,  Pico  della,  160, 310  n. 
Moliere,  217. 
Montaigne,    173,  194,  226  sq., 

240. 
Montchrestien,  230. 
Montemayor,  196. 
Morel,  Guillaume,  184. 
Mousset,  223,  298. 
Mulcaster,  296. 
Musseas,  88. 
Muzio,  38,  58,  87,  104,  129,  144, 

161,  213 ;  Arte  Poetica,  50. 

Nisieli,     Udeno,    v.     Fioretti, 

Benedetto. 
Nores,  J.  de,  v.  Denores. 

Ogier,  Fran9ois,  235. 

Opitz,  Buck  von  der  deutschen 

Poeterei,  147. 
Ovid,  179,  263. 

Palingenius,  39. 

Partenio,    127,    134,    141,  147; 

Delia  Imitatione  Poetica,  128. 
Pasquier,  223  n. 
Patrizzi,    165  sq.,    222;    Della 

Poetica,  165. 
Pazzi,  Alessandro  de',  17,  137, 

314. 
Peacham,  Compleat  Gentleman, 

310  n. 
Pellegrino,  Camillo,  122  sq. 
Pelletier,    171,    175,    182,    191, 

199  S7.,  205,  211,  217,  225. 
Petrarch,  8,  16,  58,  138,  261. 
Philo  Judseus,  7. 
Pibrac,  Guy  du  Faur  de,  225. 
Piccolomini,  yEneas  Sylvius,  12. 
Piccolomini,  Alessandro,  139,S7., 

244. 


Pierre  Ber^uire,  264. 

Pigna,  G.  B.,  115  sq.,  123,  235, 

284. 
Pinciano,  146. 
Pindar,  211. 

Pisani,  Marquise  de,  241. 
Plato,  4  sq.,  14,  78,  et  passim, 

especially  156  sq. 
Plautus,  85,  102,  285,  291. 
Plutarch,  27,  42,  114. 
Poliziauo,  13  sq.,   188;    Sylvte, 

13. 
Pomponazzi,  137. 
Pontano,  G.,  103  n.,  146  n.,  153. 
Pontano,  P.,  146  n. 
Pontanus,  J.,  146  n.,  147. 
Pope,     Alexander,     260,     310; 

Essay  on  Criticism,  108. 
Prynne,  7. 
Puttenham,  264  sq.,  284,  293; 

Arte  of  English  Poesie,  256, 

264. 

Quintil     Horatian,     181     sq., 

216  sq. 
Quintilian,  16,  54,  132, 164. 

Racan,  237. 

Racine,  75,  139,  238,  245. 
Rambouillet,  Marquise  de,  241. 
Ramus,  137,  164,  223  sq.,  227. 
Rapin,  75,  10(3,   245,   292,   294  ; 

Reflexions  sur  I' Art  Poitique, 

139. 
Regolo,  108. 
Rengifo,  145. 
Rhetores  Grseci,  17. 
Rhodiginus,  13G. 
Ricci,  B.,  138. 
Riccoboni,  140,  146,  244. 
Richelieu,  209  sq. 
Robortelli,  17,  25,  29  sq.,  63,  77, 

91,  103,  139,  244. 
Ronsard,  r>i,  147,  173,  187  sq., 

206,  211,  218  sq.,  226  sq.,  231, 

256. 


INDEX 


349 


Rucellai,  136. 
RusceUi,  58,  127. 

Sackville,  Gorboduc,  284,  290. 
Saint-Amant,  244. 
Sainte-Beuve,  152. 
Salviati,  Lionardo,  88  sq.,  123 

sq.,  139  n.,  140,  162,  181,  305, 

314,  316. 
Sanchez,  Alfonso,  234. 
Sannazaro,  35, 153  160, 179,  234. 
Savonarola,  6,  18  55.,  24,  27, 

130,  160. 
Scaliger,  Joseph  Justus,  245. 
Scaliger,    Julius     Caesar,     14, 

36  sq.,  43,  58,  131  sq.,  310  n., 

etpassitn;  Poetics,  150,  176, 

et  passim. 
Schelandre,  J.  de,  235. 
Schelling,  157. 
Schlegel,  157. 
Schosser,      Disputationes     de 

Tragcedia,  147  n. 
Scudery,  244. 
Segni,  A.,  42  n. 
Segni,  B.,  17,  92,  139. 
Selden,  310  n. 
Seneca,  62,  69,  85,    201,    232, 

284  sq.,  308. 
Shaftesbury,  54. 
Shakespeare,  46,  56,  79,  lOi  sq., 

205,  296. 
Shelley,  12, 54, 128, 142, 147, 188, 

192,  310. 
SibUet,  174  sq.,  223;    Art  Po- 

4tique,  175. 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  34,  51,  104, 

142,  et  passim;   Defence  of 

Poesy,  268  sq.,  et  passim. 
Silius  Italicus,  195. 
Simonides,  42. 
Sophocles,  62,  284,  308. 
Spenser,  117,  161,  296,  299,  302, 

305. 
Speroni,  Sperone,  75, 81, 116  sq., 

242. 


Stanyhurst,  Richard,  302. 
Strabo,  24,  27,  47,  54,  193. 
Sturm,  John,  132,  254. 
Suckling,  Session  of  the  Poets, 

258. 
Suetonius,  De  Poetis,  65. 
Summo,  Faustino,  36, 167. 
Surrey,  299. 
Symonds,  J.  A.,  257. 

Taille,  Jacques  de  la,  223  sq., 
298. 

Taille,  Jean  de  la,  185  sq., 
201  55.,  290;  Art  de  Trag6- 
die,  201,  206. 

Tasso,  Bernardo,  17,  22,  55, 119. 

Tasso,  Torquato,  8,  34,  37,  56, 
117, 119  sq.,  128,  130,  139, 151, 
192,  309;  Discorsi  deW  Arte 
Poetica,  119,  213;  Apologia, 
123. 

Tempo,  Antonio  di,  174. 

Tennyson,  302. 

Terence,  85,  106,  287,  291. 

Tertullian,  5. 

Theocritus,  179. 

Theophrastus,  64  sq. 

Tibullus,  179. 

Tolomei,  Claudio,  126,  161,  222, 
256,  298. 

Tomitano,  43. 

Toscanella,  108. 

Tottel's  Miscellany,  255. 

Trincaveli,  137. 

Trissino ,  58, 92  sg . ,  102, 106, 112, 
126,  136,  176,  206,  288;  Po- 
etica, 76,  92,  109,  140,  150. 

Turnebus,  184. 

Twining,  80. 

Valla,  Giorgio,  17, 

Varchi,  27,  34,  41,  50,  124  n., 

138,  141,  150,  161,  180. 
Vauquelin  de  la  Fresnaye,  48, 

176  sq.,  186,  196,  203,  207,  212, 

219,  227  sq. 


350 


INDEX 


Vega,  Lope  de,  233  sq.,  258  n. 
Vettori,  37  n.,  77,  97,  139. 
Vida,  13,  87, 106, 126  sq.,  131  sq., 

148, 160, 183, 187,  215, 218, 244, 

247. 
Viperano,  146  n.,  188,  204. 
Virgil,  18, 30,  87, 106,  et  passim. 
Voltaire,  95. 
Vossius,  185,  244  sq.,  292,  294, 

310  n, 

Warton,  Joseph,  143. 
Warton,  Thomas,  254. 


Watson,  Thomas,  298,  308. 

Webbe,  William,  268,  284,  293, 
302,  305 ;  Discourse  of  Eng- 
lish Poetrie,  256,  263.  283. 

Wilson,  Rhetoric,  254,  261, 
296, 

Wither,  258. 

Woodberry,  G.  E.,  12  n. 

Xenophon,  30,  275. 

Zabarella,  26  sq. 
Zapata,  171. 


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